LG Development Group carved out a comfortable financial cushion for its newly minted Fulton Market luxury apartment high-rise, opting to refinance rather than sell as it navigates a shifting capital landscape and lingering distress across its portfolio.
The Chicago-based developer, led by Brian Goldberg, secured a $124.6 million, three-year floating-rate loan from Pacific Life Insurance Company for Arthur on Aberdeen, an 18-story, 363-unit building at 210 North Aberdeen Street, according to JLL Capital Markets, which brokered the deal.
The new debt replaces a $94.2 million construction loan LG took out from Santander Bank in 2022. The move represents a change in strategy: LG listed the trophy building for sale through JLL in October, hoping to cash out into a white-hot rental market. Instead, Goldberg is hanging onto the property, leveraging a fast lease-up to 92 percent occupancy since its 2024 completion.
The successful refinancing highlights how a dropoff in new Chicago apartment construction has played into the hands of existing landlords. For the past couple of years, local developers have faced headwinds raising the equity required to close construction loans, multiple developers have said. This supply bottleneck has sent Chicago and Midwest rent growth soaring to the top of national charts, giving landlords leverage to push rents higher as tenant options dwindle when it’s time for their lease renewals.
The cash flow at Arthur on Aberdeen is further insulated by a heavy property tax shield. By utilizing the city’s 2021 Affordable Requirements Ordinance, LG set aside 20 percent of the units as affordable in exchange for a 30-year property tax abatement. This structure solidifies the building’s operating income from big jumps in tax costs — which are usually the largest cost for developers.
The financial breathing room comes at a critical time for LG, which is currently playing defense across several other Chicago projects.
The firm is still actively litigating a stinging $27 million foreclosure lawsuit filed in May 2025 by Prime Finance, court records show. That dispute involves an office-to-residential conversion at 330 South Wells Street, where a floating interest rate outstripped property revenues.
Plus, due to the frozen construction financing market, LG is still hunting for capital to kickstart the first phase of its 667-unit, two-tower Fulton Market proposal at 170 North May Street and 175 North Racine Avenue. A similar capital search is underway for its 66-unit proposal at 1201 West Kinzie Street, which in May cleared its final regulatory hurdle by securing full Chicago City Council approval.
In a bit of legal relief, court records indicate that LG quietly settled a lawsuit in July 2025 brought by the Respiratory Health Association. In 2024, the group sued LG for allegedly bailing on a $24 million acquisition of 1440 West Washington Boulevard, where there’s an office building that had been targeted for redevelopment. But interest rate hikes soured the plans, LG had said, though the association said the developer refused to pursue a necessary zoning change in good faith and canceled a community meeting about redevelopment. Terms of the settlement remain undisclosed, and the reason the parties agreed to drop the case wasn’t clear from online court records.
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