Mike Reschke

Chief Executive Officer, The Prime Group

Reschke’s biggest current bet is the redevelopment of the James R. Thompson Center, which Prime acquired in a joint venture with Capri Investment Group and repositioned as a future Google office hub. The deal is one of the most high-profile downtown redevelopments in years — and one of the most scrutinized.

As chairman and CEO of Prime, Reschke founded the development and investment firm in 1982 around high-risk, high-reward downtown projects. He has been behind major hotel projects, including the JW Marriott Chicago and the Residence Inn Chicago Loop, and has repeatedly leaned into complex adaptive reuse plays.

He has made a career of multiple rises and falls that have involved jousting with lenders, and negotiating his way back into deals, including a re-purchase of his own company in the 2000s after he lost its control for several years. At the same time, Reschke is pursuing multiple office-to-residential conversions in the Loop, betting that timing will again work in his favor.

“We’ve dealt with major negative cycles; the great financial crisis, Covid and 9/11 and the [Savings and Loans] crisis in the late 90s,” Reschke said. “The most important thing is market timing.”

The Google project has also drawn a legal complaint. An investor sued Reschke and Prime for $45 million over allegedly unpaid promissory notes, pointing to the Thompson Center deal as evidence the firm has the ability to pay. Prime has pushed to dismiss the claims, and it’s hardly Reschke’s first time tangling with legal risk.

— Emma Whalen