told Bisnow<\/a>\u00a0in October that buildings with the money to fund tenant improvements\u00a0are seeing \u201csurprisingly good activity.\u201d The laggards are the buildings without capital\u00a0to deploy.<\/p>\nThat isn\u2019t the case for Menashe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the Chicago office market ground to a halt following Google\u2019s purchase of the Thompson Center in July 2022, Menashe was the first investor to buy an office building in the city in\u00a0more than a year. It scooped up 230 W. Monroe St. in September 2023 for $45M in an all-cash deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Occupancy at that property increased from 60% to nearly 85% in\u00a0less than two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLate September of \u201823 was the bottom for Chicago,\u201d Menashe said. \u201cDid I know it? No. Was I lucky? Yes. Is it a well-located building? Absolutely. But activity and the pressure has continued to build and build and build.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal is to hit 85% occupancy\u00a0at Wacker\u00a0in 18 months, Menashe said. It took 20 months to get to that point at Monroe, but with better market conditions and a team already in place, he said he thinks the leasing velocity can be slightly faster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wacker property has the same type of small-tenant mix as the Monroe property, Menashe said. He is already getting traction from\u00a0tenants who want to expand at Wacker and said Thursday that in the prior 24 hours, he had talked to three brokers representing tenants\u00a0that want to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pure lease-up play,\u201d Menashe said. \u201cI need to do my job and provide the market with spec suites that tenants can get what they feel is a fair value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menashe said the competition for building acquisitions is growing stiffer, and institutional investors are \u201cstarting to sniff around\u201d like they did before they entered markets like New York, Boston or San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Menashe said he is excited about the direction the market is heading and he is \u201cready for the next deal\u201d when the timing is right.<\/p>\n
Not every building fits the bill \u2014\u00a0build-outs for larger spaces can lead to basis creep from overspending on tenant improvements. And he intends to be careful and methodical.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t want to move too fast, because if you drink too much tequila too quick, you’re going to get sick,\u201d Menashe said. \u201cIf you buy too many buildings too fast, things are going to go by the wayside, and there’s going to\u00a0be big mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the earliest Chicago office investors this cycle is doubling down as the city\u2019s office market creeps…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":380164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[182260,182259,960,53973,5386,1818,182258,182257,182256],"class_list":{"0":"post-380163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-125-s-wacker","9":"tag-230-w-monroe-st","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-colliers","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-jordan-menashe","15":"tag-menashe-properties","16":"tag-steven-bauer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115552404867953151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n