{"id":562707,"date":"2026-02-03T06:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/562707\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T06:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T06:43:12","slug":"brookfield-sells-1-4m-sf-chicago-office-building-at-87-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/562707\/","title":{"rendered":"Brookfield Sells 1.4M SF Chicago Office Building At 87% Discount"},"content":{"rendered":"

A joint venture between 601W<\/a> Cos. and David Werner<\/a> Real Estate Investments is making another bet on Chicago office, just over a year after the same pairing helped to kick-start the sector’s slow sales activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n 175 W. Jackson Blvd.\n <\/p>\n

The venture bought the 1.4M SF\u00a0office building at 175 W. Jackson Blvd. for about $41M,\u00a0roughly 87% less than the $306M\u00a0Brookfield Asset Management<\/a>\u00a0paid for the property in 2018.\u00a0Northwind Group<\/a>\u00a0provided a $58.5M first mortgage\u00a0to finance the acquisition and lease-up of the property,\u00a0structured as a $33.5M initial advance at closing and $25M reserved to fund future leasing costs, the lender said in a release.<\/p>\n

The property is in\u00a0the Central Loop,\u00a0taking up a full city block fronting Jackson Boulevard and Van Buren Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis acquisition continues our thesis of high-quality assets in strong locations at a reset basis,\u201d CEO David Werner said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Brookfield Corp<\/a>. has taken a beating on its office\u00a0portfolio. From 2023 to 2025, the company totaled $3B in office buildings returned to lenders or sold at a discount, an October Bisnow analysis found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of June, the Jackson Boulevard property had a 53% vacancy rate and a weighted average lease term of 5.8 years,\u00a0according to an archived JLL asset description<\/a>. Famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham<\/a> designed the 22-story property, which was built in two phases between 1912 and 1927.<\/p>\n

The property provides an investor the opportunity to \u201csubstantially increase\u201d net operating income through leasing efforts, JLL<\/a> said in its marketing materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Northwind\u00a0touted the $24M in improvements completed by prior ownership, including a new amenity center and rooftop space. The\u00a0lender\u00a0said\u00a0the recent capital investment, combined with a reset ownership basis\u00a0and large floor plates averaging about 70K SF, positions the property to capture demand from large-format tenants downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to continue and expand our relationship with the sponsors, and to provide them with a flexible financing solution to revitalize the asset to its historically strong occupancy levels,\u201d Northwind Group founder and Managing Partner\u00a0Ran Eliasaf<\/a>\u00a0said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eliasaf said the \u201cmeaningful increase\u201d in institutional capital reentering the Chicago office market and the gradual rise\u00a0in leasing activity were promising. The acquisition of a high-quality asset at a low basis, combined with capital for property improvements, creates a meaningful advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The same trio worked together on\u00a0the purchase of 303 E. Wacker<\/a>\u00a0at the end of 2024, with Northwind providing the financing for the joint venture. The team leased\u00a0more than 125K SF within\u00a0a year of acquisition, according to Northwind, although net absorption figures weren’t immediately clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Eliasaf\u00a0spoke to\u00a0Bisnow<\/a>\u00a0about the 303 E. Wacker deal in January 2025, he said\u00a0it wasn\u2019t a signal of future deals, calling it a one-off where the stars aligned. He said he didn\u2019t expect the company to lend on many more office buildings, but the price point was too good to pass up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to tell you, at a 35-bucks-a-foot basis, we feel comfortable with almost any building,\u201d Eliasaf said at the time. \u201cBasically, the value of the glass and the steel is more.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, Eliasaf predicted the next two years would be very challenging for the Chicago office market but that the rebasing of values would provide a \u201ctremendous\u201d opportunity to jump in on deals.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, real estate is all about basis, basis and leverage,\u201d Elisaf\u00a0told\u00a0Bisnow in 2025. \u201cIf you get the basis right and you’re not overleveraged, you’ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A joint venture between 601W Cos. and David Werner Real Estate Investments is making another bet on Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":562708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[245640,99924,245635,960,245636,5386,1818,245638,245639,245637],"class_list":["post-562707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-175-w-jackson-blvd","tag-brookfield-asset-management","tag-central-loop","tag-chicago","tag-david-werner-real-estate-investments","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-northwind-group","tag-ran-eliasaf","tag-the-601w-cos"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116005345949600360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562707","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=562707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}