More than a half-century after buying an ownership stake in a 247-unit apartment tower in Chicago’s Gold Coast, a local family office has sold it for $43 million.
Chicago-based Berger Realty Group this month sold the 20-story building at 1100 N. Dearborn St.
The buyer was a venture of Jeff Malk, principal at Deerfield, Illinois-based CRM Properties, and Jimmy Oppenheimer, founder and owner of Chicago-based New City Property Management, according to Cook County property records and a person familiar with the deal.
It is a rare transaction involving the Gold Coast tower. Berger first took an ownership stake in the property in 1969, Crain’s Chicago Business reported when the tower went on the market last year.
The sale comes as many multifamily properties are selling for less than it would cost to build them today, even in markets such as Chicago where a dearth of new construction has led to consistent rent growth.
In another Gold Coast deal late last year, the 280-unit Chestnut Place tower sold for just over $85 million, far below the previous sale price of $108 million in 2017.
It’s unclear from online property records how much Berger invested over the years in taking full ownership of the tower. Berger refinanced the building with a $10 million loan in 2022, according to property records.
Patriarch Bob Berger died in 2021, and in late 2022 his family sold another longtime investment — the Flat Iron Arts Building in Wicker Park, which the family had owned for almost three decades — for almost $20 million.
Berger Realty also is the longtime owner of the Fine Arts Building at 410 S. Michigan Ave., home to the Studebaker Theater.
It’s unclear why Berger decided to sell the Dearborn Street tower, and the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CoStar News.
Malk and Oppenheimer declined to comment.
Their purchase was backed by a $37.65 million loan from Wintrust Bank, property records show.
Completed in 1937, the tower is less than 2% vacant, according to CoStar data, with asking rents of $1,859 per unit and $3.27 per square foot.
CRM’s real estate investments in Chicago include the Clybourn Place shopping center in Lincoln Park. Last year, CoStar News reported that CRM plans to redevelop and reconfigure the shopping center, with plans for an apartment tower as tall as 520 feet to come in a later phase.
For the record
The seller was represented by CBRE brokers John Jaeger, Justin Puppi and Jason Zyck.