CHICAGO—When John H. Johnson opened the South Loop headquarters of his publishing empire in 1972, the neighborhood was a lower-cost submarket a bit off the beaten path. Today, however, the 125,000-square-foot, 11-story property at 820 S. Michigan Ave. sits at the center of an area filling up with luxury residential towers and new student housing facilities. Increasing values in the neighborhood has raised expectations among Columbia College officials, who have decided to sell the property and use the proceeds to fund a new student center at 8 ^th and Wabash Ave. Columbia purchased the building, where for decades Johnson published his iconic Ebony and Jet magazines, in 2010, but later found through a strategic planning process that retrofitting a vertical office building would not provide ideal working space for students. To market the property and complete a sale, the school has hired a Colliers International team consisting of David Burden , principal; Tim Hart , senior vice president; and Tyler Hague , vice president. “We have assembled a multi-disciplined team because we feel the property will generate significant interest from buyers given the DX-16 zoning for potential use in education, hospitality, office, retail, residential and mixed-use sectors,” says Burden. He adds that Colliers has successfully completed other projects in the market such as the sale of the former Michael Reese Hospital site, the acquisition of The British School of Chicago's new South Loop campus, and the sale of the Old Colony building at 407 S. Dearborn. Millennials and Baby Boomers continue to flock to the burgeoning submarket as the population has increased 95% between 2000-2010 and has since grown an additional 15%. It has also become a hotbed for student housing due to its proximity to multiple campuses that give students access to an urban core living environment.

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Columbia Puts Johnson HQ on the Market

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