Steven Fifield

Founder, Fifield Companies

Fifield built a national development firm during an era when size signaled success, then spent the later chapters of his career pulling back.

He founded Fifield Companies in 1977 and built it into a national development firm with more than $7 billion in completed projects, spanning roughly 13,000 residential units and 8.7 million square feet of commercial space. His early career focused on condominiums, but Fifield also made notable office plays, including the renovation and sale of the Chicago River-facing Civic Opera Building in the 1990s.

He weathered the early 1990s real estate crash through asset sales and lender restructurings, an experience that shaped his conservative approach to leverage and investor relations.

He was also involved with David Friedman in the development of 727 West Madison, the 45-story elliptically shaped luxury apartment tower completed in 2018. The 492-unit building was the tallest structure west of the Kennedy Expressway at the time. The property was sold to the family office of Zara founder Amancio Ortega for about $232 million in 2023, marking one of the largest apartment trades ever in the area.

In recent years, Fifield has narrowed his focus to multifamily development and expanded west through a joint venture called Century West Partners, with projects in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Waikiki. While the firm no longer chases the scale of its earlier Chicago office work, Fifield remains active by selectively pursuing residential deals.