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Retail and Parking in Chicago’s Marina City Sell for $30 Million

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Unloads Property to Foundation Run by California-Based Sperry Commercial

Retail and parking in the Marina City complex on the Chicago River have sold for $30 million. (Robert Gigliotti/CoStar)
Retail and parking in the Marina City complex on the Chicago River have sold for $30 million. (Robert Gigliotti/CoStar)

A California investor has paid $30 million for the retail portions of Chicago’s Marina City in a deal that includes parking garages within the complex’s corncob-like high-rises that decades ago provided one of the city’s most memorable Hollywood stunts.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust on Friday announced it sold the approximately 146,000 square feet of retail and 900 parking spaces within the towers for $30 million.

The buyer is a foundation run by Irvine, California-based Sperry Commercial, the company told CoStar News. That firm’s CEO, Rand Sperry, is one of the foundation’s trustees.

The complex runs along the Chicago River and State, Dearborn and Kinzie streets in River North. Retail tenants include 10pin Bowling Lounge, a Spin ping-pong venue, and restaurants including Tortoise Supper Club and Smith & Wollensky.

The property is best known for the twin towers in which residential condominiums are individually owned. A House of Blues music venue in the complex also is separately owned and was not part of the deal.

The condo towers, designed by Bertrand Goldberg, served as the cover art for the band Wilco’s 2002 album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.”

Long before that, the towers were known to movie buffs for a memorable scene in actor Steve McQueen’s final movie, “The Hunter,” which was released in 1980. In that scene, a Pontiac Grand Prix car plunged from the 16th floor of the west tower’s parking garage into the river below.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Pebblebrook acquired the hotel, retail and parking on lower levels of the residential towers as part of its 2018 buyout of LaSalle Hotel Properties.

Pebblebrook earlier this year put the retail space and its 354-room Hotel Chicago within the complex on the market for sale. It’s unclear whether the real estate investment trust still plans to sell the hotel, and the company did not respond to requests for comment from CoStar News.

In its statement, Pebblebrook said the sale price was at a capitalization rate, or annual rate of return, of about 6.4% for the buyer.

It said the Chicago deal is among seven property sales for a combined $330.8 million this year, which it said may be put toward paying down debt and share buybacks.

Earlier this year, Pebblebrook sold the retail portion of the Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago hotel to Blatteis & Schnur for $27.3 million.