East Loop Office Tower Sells for $182M

CHICAGO—An affiliate of Beacon Capital Partners has bought 303 East Wacker, a 944,000-square-foot riverfront office tower in the East Loop submarket, from Franklin Street Partners for $182 million. It’s another sign that investors now see the East Loop, once an afterthought in Chicago’s office market, as a vibrant and attractive neighborhood sought out by creative tenants. And that gives Beacon an excellent opportunity.

“It’s a perfect value-add deal,” Nooshin Felsenthal, managing director at JLL, told GlobeSt.com. Along with Bruce Miller, international director at JLL, she handled the sale on behalf Franklin. Keith Largay, JLL’s managing director and Heather Brown, executive vice president, arranged acquisition financing for Beacon.

Built in 1980, the 30-story tower has not been thoroughly renovated since the 1990s. But its 30,000-square-foot floorplates, unobstructed 360-degree views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, and eleven-and-a-half-foot slab-to-slab ceiling heights has already brought in a variety of media, logistics and technology tenants, which lease the majority of the space.

“The combination of a dynamic and diverse rent roll of high tech, creative and engineering tenants with the ability to capitalize on tightening market fundamentals in the East Loop was attractive to potential buyers,” Felsenthal added.

Beacon definitely has the experience needed to remake 303 East Wacker. The company bought 1 N. Dearborn in the Central Loop, and added a rooftop garden to the 100-year-old building, along with a new fitness center and tenant lounge, all while preserving its vintage appeal.

“An increasingly aggressive finance market enabled Beacon to have number of attractive financing options to fund their acquisition and repositioning of the asset,” said Largay.