GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Garage, Retail Space in $52M Exchange

Syndicated Equities will buy the 1,108-space parking garage with 19,000 sf of retail space from New York-based Radiant Partners LLC, capitalizing on a relationship partner John Hammerschlag, whom Kaplan notes has made a career in the Chicago parking industry, has with that company. While the parking structure is now managed by Vancouver, BC-based Imperial Parking, Syndicated Equities is seeking other bids, Kaplan says.

"What's unique about this thing is our investment group is including several different 1031 traders," Kaplan tells GlobeSt.com during a meeting Monday at the firm's Near North Side offices. "Our structure is such that it allows these people to trade in as an owner."

Kaplan expects Syndicated Equities to make a decision within two weeks on financing. The company has received "five or six" quotes from lenders, he says. "Parking is a different animal. There are many lenders enthusiastic about it," Kaplan says. "We're very pleased by the response. The retail gives them another cushion. It's stable, and we're getting market-rate rents there."

Walgreen's occupies 12,135 sf at the southwest corner of Madison and Wells streets, says senior managing director Jill Sickle, with the additional space taken by three restaurants and an Enterprise car rental facility.

John Buck Co.'s UBS Tower recently opened less than a block west, and talk continues to percolate about future office construction on vacant lots on nearby Wacker Drive, she notes.

"It's just a phenomenal location, when you look what's going on," Sickle says. "They'll be very many new people moving in."

Syndicated Equities' bread and butter for the last six years has been serving as a "grocery store" for 1031 exchanges involving single-tenant net-leased properties such as Walgreen's throughout the US, Kaplan says. Sickle heads up the firm's Multiple Owner Opportunity program, which can put investors with $200,000 or more into such deals with a handful of other equity investors, Kaplan says. "It's been a nice time to be in this vanilla, but safe and secure, market," he adds, as the stock market has recently failed to match the modest returns of net-lease investments.

In a joint venture last year with Landmark Partners, Radiant bought the property built in 1997 by local developer Steven Fifield a year ago in a $205-million portfolio acquisition from First Union Real Estate Equity and Mortgage Investments. The 12-property portfolio included six other parking garages in Cleveland; Columbus, OH; Nashville, TN and Richmond, VA.