Missner Ready to Jump into the West Loop

Missner could also renovate 1220 W. Van Buren into a hotel or perhaps student housing.

CHICAGO—The Missner Group has decided now is the perfect time to jump into the burgeoning West Loop office market. The Des Plaines, IL-based developer has just acquired 1220 W. Van Buren St., and plans to redevelop the seven-story, 115,000 square foot manufacturing building into a class A, loft office property. Its new acquisition is a bit to the south of the Fulton Market neighborhood’s core, where Google and other high-profile firms recently settled, but demand and interest in the surrounding blocks has also been quite strong.   

“We’re typically not the pioneers in a new neighborhood, but we’re also not the last guys to get in,” Missner’s Ed Adler, senior vice president-development, acquisitions, tells GlobeSt.com. And for some time the company has been looking for a good building in the neighborhood that some now call Fulton Market South. “It’s not an area where people can come in and pick up property for a steal; there is not a lot of inventory of this type left.” Still, the neighborhood also can’t be called mature. “We think it has a long way to go.”