Developers of a two-building, 207-unit apartment property on Chicago’s North Side are looking to cash in as multifamily sales volume in the area vastly outpaces the national average.
Owners of the Wicker Park Connection, a property at 1640 and 1664 W. Division St. that also includes a Target store and other retail, have hired CBRE brokers to find a buyer, according to a brochure.
It is the latest example of Chicago multifamily landlords testing the waters as rent growth outpaces most of the nation’s largest markets after years of subdued new construction.
That has led Chicago-area property sales to rise 30% over the past year, compared with about 5% nationally.
Earlier this week, the owners of three big multifamily properties north of the Loop business district — Next, a 310-unit tower at 347 W. Chestnut St.; SoNo East, a 324-unit property at Dayton and Blackhawk streets, and Eight Eleven, a 381-unit complex at 811 W. Agatite Ave. — hired Newmark brokers to market them for sale. Those deals were previously reported by Crain’s Chicago Business.
Those offerings followed the $167 million sale of the 1,115-unit Pavilion Apartments complex on the city’s far Northwest Side near O’Hare International Airport. It was the largest deal so far this year in Chicago.
Wicker Park Connection was completed in 2018 by Chicago developers Arthur Slaven of Centrum Realty & Development and former Centrum executive John McLinden, now managing partner of Hubbard Street Group.
They did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CoStar News on the offering.
The Chicago-based venture previously listed the property for sale in 2018, but a buyer never emerged. They refinanced it with a 10-year, $64.74 million loan from CBRE Capital Markets in April 2019, according to Cook County property records.
Wicker Park Connection includes a 61-unit building at 1664 W. Division and a 146-unit tower at 1640 W. Division, each with ground-floor retail. The property’s 23,855 square feet of retail is fully leased, including 12,613 square feet occupied by Target, according to CBRE.
The property is just off the high-traffic intersection of Ashland and Milwaukee avenues and Division, near a Chicago Transit Authority train station on the Blue Line.
CBRE is marketing it as an opportunity for continued rent growth amid a limited pipeline of upcoming multifamily projects.
The property has a pool and deck, fitness center, party room and business center.
For the record
The sellers are represented by CBRE brokers John Jaeger, Justin Puppi and Jason Zyck.