A Miami-based developer has paid more than $34 million for a big development site in Chicago’s Fulton Market, where it plans one of the tallest buildings in the fast-growing former meatpacking district that would change that section of the city skyline.
Crescent Heights last month completed the purchase of the 1.7-acre site at 420 N. May St., according to Jason Buchberg, a Chicago-based vice president of acquisitions at the firm.
The $34.5 million sale was completed less than four months after Crescent Heights’ plans to build a 600-foot-tall apartment tower on the site first became public.
Crescent Heights continues to work toward city zoning approval to build a 52-story, 587-unit apartment tower on the site, which is taller than any existing building in the neighborhood along the Kennedy Expressway.
The firm hopes to have entitlements completed by the end of the year, but it doesn’t plan to begin construction for a few years, Buchberg told CoStar News, as large-scale developments continue moving west in the district.
“We’ve wanted to be part of this community and we’re excited about it, but this is more of a down-the-road project,” Buchberg said. “Our ultimate feeling is that this site sits in the path of growth. As it fills in, we feel like we’re in a really good position to have momentum for our project.
“We believe in everything that’s going on around us for 360 degrees.”
Related Midwest is close to completing The Row Fulton Market, a 495-foot-tall apartment tower at 164 N. Peoria St. that will become the neighborhood’s tallest structure. The same developer proposes a 700-foot-tall office tower at 725 W. Randolph St., which is one of several ongoing projects expected to push up the skyline in an area once known for low-rise meatpacking and food distribution buildings.
Fulton Market in recent years emerged as the fastest-growing urban office market in the country, according to a CoStar analysis. The area also includes top restaurants, boutique hotels, shops and new residential towers.
Developers now have thousands of apartments in the works, including Loukas Development’s recently disclosed plan to put a 530-foot-tall tower with 593 apartments at 1300 W. Lake St.
Crescent Heights’ vision for its new site includes preserving part of the existing loft office building on the site at the base of a 52-story apartment tower designed by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture.
The seller of the May Street site was an affiliate of Chicago’s MCZ Development, which bought it for $15.25 million in January.
The far higher sale price reflects how property values have continued to soar in the area west of the Loop business district, even as rising interest rates and economic worries slow real estate deals throughout the country.
Development in the market and broader economic conditions will help dictate when Crescent Heights kicks off the project, Buchberg said.
Crescent Heights’ previous projects in Chicago have included the 76-story, 800-unit NEMA Chicago skyscraper in the South Loop along Grant Park.
Before kicking off the Fulton Market project, the firm plans to build a 413-unit apartment tower about a mile southeast of the May Street site at 640 W. Washington Blvd.
Last year, Crescent Heights sold the 350-unit Echelon tower in the Fulton River District for $133 million. The buyer was Canadian investor Morguard, which already owned two neighboring towers.
For the Record
CBRE's Tom Svoboda represented MCZ Development in the sale of the May Street site.