Downtown Still Bringing in Buyers

The Helmut Jahn designed building at 120 N. LaSalle has a distinctive presence, and will soon have a full set of amenities.

CHICAGO—Investors may have slowed down their purchases in Chicago’s downtown office market, but attractive deals still crop up. Ascentris, a Denver-based real estate private equity firm, has just purchased on behalf of one of its public retirement system clients 120 North LaSalle, a 383,000 square-foot, 38-story tower in the Central Loop submarket. Although Ascentris currently focuses a lot of attention on suburban properties, this building presented just the kind of value-add opportunity it prefers.

The company looks for relatively new properties with good access to public transportation and high walkability scores, but that could also use some improvements, James Proffitt of Ascentris tells GlobeSt.com. And 120 North LaSalle, designed by Helmut Jahn and built in 1991, “fit all of these criteria, but it just happened to be located downtown.”