One of the investors that recently refinanced the hotel within Chicago’s 101-story St. Regis skyscraper at a bigger property value has acquired 16 new residential condos in the property — at a big discount to their stated worth.
The differing valuations on parts of a single property show that not all real estate types are recovering at the same pace in the years following COVID-19, even when they're in the same high-profile skyscraper.
GD Holdings last week paid $21 million for the units in the tower at 363 E. Wacker Drive, online property records show. The seller was an affiliate of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which acquired the never-occupied units late last year in an unusual settlement of a dispute with China’s Wanda Studios over control of children’s television show “Octonauts.”
The media giant’s turnaround, marked by the bulk condo sale, is the latest plot twist the $1 billion development has experienced since its 2016 groundbreaking. The project has endured two name changes, the exit of the project’s Chinese financial backer and a global pandemic.
St. Regis Chicago is the centerpiece of a 28-acre Lakeshore East project on the site of a former nine-hole golf course near Millennium Park, the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Residents moved into the building in late 2020, and the 192-room luxury hotel opened in 2023.
China’s Dalian Wanda Group, which invested with Chicago developer Magellan Development Group to develop the residential and hotel tower, gave up the block of 16 condos last year to settle the dispute with Japan’s Sony over the global rights to the TV show.
Negotiation over condo value
In a regulatory filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange last year, a Wanda affiliate said it would transfer the residential units in the Chicago property that were valued at nearly $47.5 million to Sony affiliate CPE Stage Investments in exchange for its 49% stake in “Octonauts” holding company Vampire Squid Productions. Wanda already controlled the other 51%.
The role of the tower, designed by Jeanne Gang, in resolving the TV show dispute was outlined earlier this year by The Real Deal and followed a lengthy legal battle over the valuation of the globally popular Octonauts brand. The Real Deal also earlier reported the 16 units sold to GD Holdings.
The sides eventually settled on a $49 million value of Sony’s stake, according to media reports. Ownership of the units was transferred to the Sony affiliate in December. The units are on floors 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 48, 53, 54, 77 and 89, according to property records.
GD and Sony Pictures Entertainment didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from CoStar News.
In selling the condos for far less than the value previously stated by Wanda, Sony was able to monetize the settlement rather than potentially waiting years for condos to sell in transactions with separate buyers.
For GD, the deal was an opportunity to further widen its investment in Chicago’s third-tallest building with big potential upside on sales of the latest units as they sell in the years to come.
That firm, a Denver-based real estate affiliate of Mexican clothing company Grupo Denim, previously teamed up with Miami-based Gencom to buy the hotel on lower floors of the tower in 2023. That deal involved a forward purchase agreement in which Gencom agreed more than two years in advance to buy the hotel when it opened.
Larger refinancing value
The 2023 purchase of the hotel was backed by a $76 million loan from Varde Partners. Last month, the property was refinanced for a much larger amount. The new $125 million in debt implies a significant increase in value since the hotel’s opening, but the magnitude of the gain is unclear.
GD also previously bought 84 separate residential units from Wanda for $117 million in late 2024, some of which GD has since sold in multimillion-dollar transactions.
Wanda later listed its remaining 37 units, which had never been available for sale, for sale in bulk, CoStar News reported in March 2025. The latest sale to GD includes 16 of those units.
A decade after starting construction on the 1,191-foot-tall tower, Magellan and Wanda still have units they’ve yet to sell.
High-end condo projects in other cities also have faced longer-than-expected timelines for unit sales. Completed in 2017, a third of the 62 units in the Four Seasons Private Residences in Baltimore’s Harbor East have never sold, the Baltimore Banner recently reported.
Development of the St. Regis Chicago's tallest building began in partnership with the Chinese firm, with the project’s initial name Wanda Vista Tower. The plan was for the tower, later renamed Vista Tower, to house Wanda Group’s first U.S. luxury hotel.
Facing pressure from China’s government to cut back on real estate developers’ investments abroad, Wanda eventually sold its 90% ownership stake to Magellan in late 2020, with Wanda keeping some unsold condos in the deal.
As part of an agreement with Marriott International to open the first St. Regis Hotels & Resorts in the Midwest, St. Regis obtained naming rights in late 2020.