Almost seven years after buying a historic building at a high-traffic intersection of the Logan Square neighborhood and drawing up multiple redevelopment plans, a Chicago developer is handing off the long-vacant brick structure to another local real estate investor to carry out a residential conversion.
GW Properties late last month sold the five-story former Hollander Storage & Moving building at 2418-2420 N. Milwaukee Ave. for just under $4.8 million, according to online property records.
The buyer is J2 Equities, an affiliate of Northbrook, Illinois-based Lelyn Group, a longtime investor in several Chicago neighborhoods.
The sale is the latest change for a more than century-old property that residents in the neighborhood northwest of the Loop business district have closely watched in recent years, worrying that the structure would deteriorate before it could be repurposed.
J2 Equities CEO Jason Wiznitzer said the firm intends to follow through on plans the city already approved for GW to convert the property to 62 apartments and 13,000 square feet of retail.
"It's a big chunk of real estate that's been sitting vacant on Milwaukee Avenue, and the neighborhood has wanted to see this get done," Wiznitzer told CoStar News. "GW was interested in moving on from the project, and it fit exactly what we're looking to do in Chicago, which is build residential units in the city where we see really strong demand. We feel this will help fill in the neighborhood and add value to Logan Square."
Wiznitzer said the firm plans to begin work on the project this fall with an expected completion in spring 2027.
Following GW's long-running plan, J2 plans to demolish a single-story building adjacent to the Hollander building to make room for a five-story structure connected to the historic one. The combined building will create room for apartments, yet-to-be-determined retail on the ground floor and amenities such as a fitness center, co-working space and a rooftop deck.
The development will keep the Hollander name in some form, Wiznitzer said.
"It's an iconic part of Logan Square, it's a beautiful building, and we want to honor that," he said.
GW bought the property for just over $5.8 million in August 2018 from Hollander, according to Cook County records.
The building is at the intersection of Milwaukee and Fullerton avenues, alongside train tracks on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line. The high-visibility location long served as an advertisement by way of Hollander’s huge red billboard, with the previous owner also using the property to store records.
GW in 2019 unveiled plans to convert the existing 33,000-square-foot building and expand onto an adjacent site to create boutique offices, retail, restaurants and nine apartments. That concept won City Council approval in 2021.
By 2022, though, GW had pivoted to a residential-focused plan, eventually settling on the one that J2 plans to launch soon.
“We put a lot of time, energy and money into it, but with changing markets and the limited bandwidth that we have, we decided to let someone else take it on so we can focus on other projects," GW Principal Mitch Goltz said. "It’s bittersweet, but I’m happy to see the project get done.”
For the record
Tom Svoboda of CBRE brokered the sale.