Avenue Living Buys Lincoln Park Storage

A Canadian buyer is making its mark on Chicago’s North Side.

Calgary, Alberta-based Avenue Living Asset Management bought a self storage and office property in Lincoln Park for $30.5 million last week, public records show.

Avenue Living is a real estate investment firm that specializes in storage facilities, multifamily properties and farmland.

The seller was local firm LSC Development which led a successful turnaround of the property at 1030 West North Avenue after buying it out of foreclosure that it entered in 2010.

The building struggled when electronics store Circuit City closed all of its locations in 2009, including a 35,000-square-foot store in the North Avenue building. The store had been leasing over 30 percent of the building, according to prior reporting.

A venture led by Chicago furniture seller Lloyd Stein gave up the property via foreclosure after missing payments toward a securitized loan backed by the building. Miami-based special servicer LNR Partners took over control of the building and eventually sold it off to LSC in 2012.

LSC then converted part of the property into a storage facility and kept the remaining space for office and retail use. It’s unclear how much LSC invested into the property in total.

The company took out a $24 million loan against the property in 2012 that was also backed by three other properties that LSC owned. LSC then refinanced the property for $70 million in 2021 in a mortgage that was backed by six properties, including the North Avenue building.

Representatives of LSC and Avenue Living did not respond to requests for comment.

The building is surrounded by other large-scale retail properties along the Clybourn Corridor including an Old Navy, outdoor apparel store Backcountry and a Whole Foods.

Lincoln Park is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods for investors, developers and residential buyers.

The per-unit price for mid-sized apartment complexes on the North Side has been trending upward past $500,000 per unit over the past year.

Last May, for example, developer Michael Breheny’s Contemporary Concepts sold a 14-unit apartment building at 516 West Arlington Place in Lincoln Park that the firm developed to Utah-based Highland Partners for $10.3 million, or $739,000 per unit.

And the residential side has become increasingly competitive for buyers.

The tight market has made traditional comparable sales almost irrelevant for pricing. Recent Redfin data shows about 70 percent of homes sold earlier this spring went over their asking price, with an average premium of more than $60,000.