Canada’s Manulife is looking to sell a 40-story, Helmut Jahn-designed office tower in Chicago’s Loop business district in what could be the latest example of a high-vacancy tower in a major U.S. city converted to a new use.
JLL brokers have been hired to sell the 815,074-square-foot building at 55 W. Monroe St., which is more than 80% vacant, according to a brochure.
The 46-year-old tower is expected to sell for far less than it could cost to build today, leaving a buyer room to invest in new office leases and potentially convert large blocks of the building into apartments, hotel rooms or both, according to the JLL materials.
Several buildings on and around LaSalle Street already are in the process of being partially converted into affordable apartments as part of a broader, city-backed program.
The Monroe Street tower was one of several in the city that were designed by Jahn, the German-born and Chicago-based architect who died in 2021.
Manulife previously explored a potential sale in 2022, but no buyer emerged at the time.
If the property sells this time around, it is likely to be the second sale of a 40-story Chicago office tower at a big loss for Manulife in just over a year.
In early 2025, Manulife sold the tower at 200 S. Wacker Drive for $68 million, a massive discount to the $214.5 million it paid in 2013 and also far below the value of an approximately $151 million loan on the property.
The buyers of that tower, local developer Glenstar and a high-net-worth Minnesota investor, recently began a $30 million renovation to boost leasing efforts.
A Manulife affiliate bought the building at 55 W. Monroe for $243.25 million in 2014, according to CoStar data and Cook County property records. It never took out a loan on that tower.
Toronto-based Manulife did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CoStar News.
JLL materials outline several options for redeveloping portions of the tower into as many as 532 hotel rooms or 296 apartments, or a combination of new uses.
For the record
The seller is represented by JLL brokers Jaime Fink, Bruce Miller and Sam DiFrancesca.