Shanna Khan sat at the head of her 11th-floor conference room table sipping Laurent- Perrier Cuvee Rose from a heavy crystal glass.
It was March 6, a couple weeks after the official opening of her Chicago office building at 919 West Fulton Street. The Fulton, as it’s known, is smack dab in the center of the city’s hottest neighborhood for commercial development, Fulton Market. Khan was flanked by her real estate partners Ross Babel and Alex Najem, and the three were reading aloud emails about their acquisition targets in the neighborhood.
Then Khan paused, recalling the moment that she feared the $300 million-plus project would never be developed.
That was December 29, 2022. The post-pandemic market had made financing even apartment buildings nearly impossible, and developing an office with Chicago’s vacancy rates at a record high of about 25 percent seemed unimaginable.
“It was the lowest point in my life. I was up all night,” Khan told The Real Deal last month in a rare sit-down interview.
The 39-year-old daughter of Shahid Khan — the world’s richest Pakistani and billionaire owner of Urbana, Illinois-based car parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate and the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars — had just found out that her grand plan to build the 409,000-square-foot office building was falling apart.
Harrison Street Asset Management, a massive real estate and alternative investments advisor, opted to terminate its deal to lease space in the yet-to-be constructed development.
So did upscale steakhouse tenant Gibsons Restaurant Group for retail space in the building.
Outside work, Khan’s first marriage had ended after four years.
“But courage isn’t the absence of fear,” she said.
She scooped herself up and revived the office deal, bringing additional capital to the table to break ground in 2023. By going forward, she’s ended up with the only major high-end office building that’ll be completed in Chicago this year and likely for the next several years. It’s a commitment to turning the surrounding neighborhood into the live-work-play paradise she and several developers before her have pictured.
“I love to pivot.”
At the time of the almost-crisis, she had more competition. Sterling Bay was constructing 360 North Green Street, also in Fulton Market. Completed in 2024, that 500,000-square-foot tower opened with well more than half its space leased before and during construction to Boston Consulting Group and law firm Greenberg Traurig. Meanwhile, Related Midwest was planning a mixed-use project nearby. (It has since changed plans, intending to build a 41-story office tower, though it hasn’t gotten enough pre-leasing to break ground.)
Yet Khan’s project, spearheaded by her firm, Shanna Collective, and Babel and Najem’s firm, Fulton Street Companies, as well as JDL Development, pulled in a $233 million construction loan from Bank OZK and Manulife Investment Management. They had reeled Harrison Street and Gibsons back in. Then, they struck a lease with high-end fitness firm Equinox, even though it shares a parent company with Related, which was also seeking tenants.
Some well-off scions might oversee from afar, but Khan is on site. She did design, furniture selection and styling throughout The Fulton, picking chairs that have their backs, arms and some legs carved into the beaks, feathers and talons of phoenixes. The mythical, self-rejuvenating birds symbolize the property’s rise from its own ashes. Khan forged a fruitful partnership with Najem and Babel’s firm, which has honed the group’s dealmaking and execution; they’re pursuing more Chicago development projects together, though they’re still working out the details of the structure. They have plenty of mutual admiration.
“She’s becoming the queen of Fulton Market,” Najem said.
The property still has 138,000 square feet, one-third of the space, left to lease. It recently lost out on getting candy manufacturer Mars as a tenant, after Mars opted to lease more space than The Fulton could offer at Trammell Crow’s nearby 400 North Aberdeen Street. Unshaken, Khan and crew are hoping they’ll hook more private equity or financial services firms into leases.
“We don’t lose deals on economics. But we don’t chase deals,” Babel said. He noted that The Fulton is charging north of $50 per square foot to rent offices, which he said is the most in Fulton Market. They don’t offer the generous tenant improvement packages or concessions that some landlords are dangling as they contend with record-high vacancy rates. Instead, they attract homegrown finance firms whose roots — not back offices — are in Chicago and whose budgets stretch for new, premium space in a hip area.
Even as brand-new Class A office developments stand above the rest of the sector, The Fulton isn’t necessarily out of the woods yet financially, with its construction loan still attached. Khan shrugs off the possibility of having to kick in more equity to refinance the debt, if or when the time comes. She’s not developing for a fee or with a plan to sell quickly once completing a project.
“You build to stand the test of time,” Khan said. “I don’t like to use the word control, but it’s really about being accountable for the outcome… Earlier in my life, I was focused on mitigating regret — it’s a part of my ethos. Today, I operate with the intensity and mindset that everything is on the line. Failure is not an option.”
Finding an entry
Khan wasn’t first to Fulton Market. The groundwork for the neighborhood’s transformation from a meatpacking district into a hub of offices, trendy restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings was laid more than a decade ago, as developers such as Sterling Bay and Shapack Partners lured such tenants as Google, McDonald’s and Soho House to the area. Since then, there’s been a land rush by developers supported by institutional capital, including New York-based firms like Thor Equities and family office-backed Vista Property.
Khan entered the scene by riding that second wave and became the face of post-pandemic Fulton Market development somewhat unintentionally. She and Fulton Street Cos. first partnered on 1201 West Fulton Street, which they bought in 2020 for $20 million as a 37,000-square-foot single-story building with a plan to get it entitled for a few hundred apartments and then sell it to a party that would build. Future tenant at The Fulton, Chris Merrill, Harrison Street’s co-founder, went in on that project with them.
Khan later decided she wanted to develop the property herself, with Fulton Street Cos. and Chicago-based Weldon Development. It’s now set to be a 32-story, 433-unit apartment building, with construction financing set to be locked down in the coming weeks, Najem said.
“I love to pivot,” Khan said. She’s done plenty of that, currently leaning further into development and changing planned uses for her projects. At The Fulton, the landlord has also switched office leasing brokerages a couple times, starting with local boutique Madison Rose before hiring a JLL team for a stint, before recently switching back to Madison Rose.
The development firms are also building 1200 West Fulton into a bigger, two-tower multifamily development with Weldon and Merrill.
“Her belief has allowed developers like Ross and I to move forward when institutions backed away.”
Khan and Fulton Street Cos. also paid $49 million in late 2022 for the former Schwinn bicycle factory at 910 West Lake Street, a property adjacent to The Fulton that will eventually connect via elevated walkways to the larger office building. Originally envisioned as a hotel conversion, the Lake Street property is now set to be turned into office space leased by Coca-Cola and ground-floor retail leased by Paris-based luxury fashion designer Rick Owens, a potentially game-changing deal for Fulton Market.
“We contemplate whether this kind of luxury will take this neighborhood seriously. This is proof of that,” said Shawn Clark, CEO of the developer CRG; his firm is planning a large mixed-use project in Fulton Market at 170 North Green Street that hasn’t yet broken ground.
Khan is investing elsewhere, too. She was a limited partner in one of Clark’s multifamily deals in Fort Worth, Texas, where she similarly increased her involvement over time until she was also leading the interior design. “It turned out fantastic,” Clark said, noting he welcomed the investor’s hands-on input.
In February, Khan landed a $360 million loan from Bank OZK for a Four Seasons Hotel and Residences project in Jacksonville, the city’s largest construction debt package ever. It will result in a 170-key hotel and 26 ultra-luxury condos starting at $4.7 million. Douglas Elliman launched sales in January. The project is near the Jaguars’ EverBank Stadium and envisioned as combining entertainment with hospitality, retail and other standard commercial construction, Shanna Collective said.
With strong family business ties to both cities, Khan said she’s attracted to invest in both due to each city’s “quiet humility” despite the presence of “so much success there.”
“Both cities have had difficult times. Her belief has allowed developers like Ross and I to move forward when institutions backed away,” Najem said.
Downstate upbringing
Khan was raised in Champaign, Illinois, where the University of Illinois, both her alma mater and her parents’, is the driving economic force. Her father, now worth $14.5 billion, immigrated to the United States at age 16 with $500 in his pocket, according to Forbes. His wife and Shanna’s mother, Ann Carlson Khan, is a graduate of the Homewood-Flossmoor public high school in Chicago’s south suburbs.
“There is a humble luxury to Shanna, growing up in Champaign,” Najem said. He and Khan are really close: She was the first person outside his family to hold his baby several years ago.
Their friendship, and Najem and Babel’s admiration of her, has also defined their business relationship, which is becoming more intertwined. Fulton Street Cos.’ future developments are now being executed under Shanna Collective, with the operations of Fulton Street transitioning into the platform, a spokesperson for Khan said. Najem and Babel will serve in director-level roles at Shanna Collective, involved in all aspects of developments, with Khan at the helm company-wide.
Khan describes herself as a “servant-leader.”
“Uplifting is my core principle,” she said. Najem said he’s seen her give friends enough confidence to quit their jobs and pursue their real passions. “They’ve springboarded,” he described it.
He and Babel are careful not to ask too much of their relationship to Khan, as she isn’t going to save everything in Fulton Market, nor every deal they do.
In late 2025, Babel signed deeds handing over several Fulton Market properties to lender Bixby Bridge Capital, after Bixby filed and then quickly dismissed a $45 million foreclosure lawsuit alleging that a Fulton Street Cos. affiliate had defaulted on debt. Najem said Khan had nothing to do with the portfolio of buildings, at 1101 West Fulton, 120 North May, 220 North Aberdeen and a parking lot at 351 North May streets. Fulton co-owned them with Chicago retail magnate Fred Latsko.
Najem said that he and Babel were against getting Khan involved, wanting to “keep the powder dry” and avoid pulling her into a situation with parties she couldn’t control. (Fulton Street Cos. and its partner lost no equity in the giveback due to the amount of leverage on the deal, they said, and they pulled 1144 West Fulton Street out of the Bixby portfolio loan before it fell apart; Khan is invested with them in that property, which hosts a showroom for commercial furniture designer MillerKnoll and sits on the Fulton Street corridor Khan is focused on shaping.)
Leading the charge
Khan’s older brother, Tony, is the president and CEO of their family’s All Elite Wrestling entertainment venture. Shanna has ownership stakes in that and the family’s other professional sports holdings, which include the Jaguars and the Fulham FC soccer club in the United Kingdom.
But she has lately focused on commercial real estate, leading the wealthy brood’s investments in the industry.
“I love a blank piece of paper,” she said. “Commercial real estate was a natural fit,” she said.
Khan graduated from the University of Illinois in 2009 with an accounting degree, though her professional life began with the U.S. House of Representatives. From 2010 through 2013, she served as an immigration and international specialist for Rep. Tim Johnson, and she held the same position with Rep. Rodney Davis to start 2013. She also served as a Congressional liaison for the U.S. Department of State, Customs and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Patrol and Department of Human Services for embassies and consulates throughout the world. She once helped a Southeast Asian immigrant navigate his way out of the U.S. to visit a family member diagnosed with a brain aneurysm without disturbing his ability to return.
Khan’s passion for interior design arose during a period she spent in France and Italy in her twenties. A stay at the Le Meurice Hotel in Paris was formative. Najem said Khan’s house makes him feel like he’s in Paris.
She also applied her tastes as creative director of her family’s latest superyacht, a 122-meter vessel completed in 2024 called Kismet. (The family’s previous yacht of the same name was sold to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.)
Khan’s work earned high praise: Trade outlet Boat International called it “unapologetically dramatic yet deeply personal.”
Khan is also now engaged to be remarried, to Andrew Czarkowski.
Elite company
In Chicago, she’s one of few investors forging ahead on large-scale real estate projects as metrics such as apartment construction in the region fall near historic lows. As the city faces an exodus of longtime billionaire business leaders, there are a few ultra-wealthy investors other than Khan filling the void: Joe Mansueto, Justin Ishbia and Michael Reinsdorf and Danny Wirtz. All are eyeing major plays, often part of sports-anchored megadevelopments.
In Chicago, Khan has so far pursued traditional ground-up real estate projects in Fulton Market rather than sprawling megadevelopments. Still, there’s a conscious effort by Khan to create a distinct zone at Fulton Market, “the NoLa District” — north of Lake Street. She, Najem and Babel hope to build on the momentum of the Rick Owens lease and bring more invigorating retail and entertainment options to the neighborhood.
They intend to purchase the vacant, four-story building at 942 West Fulton from Thor Equities with plans to turn it into more retail space. And they’re considering more property coming up for sale in the neighborhood, with the goal of building a new city within a city. They know this can work.
“I don’t care whatever religion you are, just believe in something bigger than yourself,” Khan said as an interview concluded.
She had finished her wine and needed to go. With Najem and Babel, she rushed out of The Fulton to meet with real estate execs in the neighborhood. They’d be discussing bids on her latest acquisition plans.