"The potential of these properties was obvious for a long time",says Paul Fishbein, vice president of Amermar Enterprises ofPhiladelpia, which is the marketing partner in the development."The problem was that the people it was obvious to didn't have themoney to make it happen."

The opportunity for the E-port partners, which also includesTaconic Investment Partners, Angelo Gordon & Co. and CentrumProperties, came when Montgomery Wards filed for bankruptcy. TheE-port partners stepped up and paid $62 million for the Wardsproperties, which included some land and the massive 1.5 million-sfformer Wards Catalog Building. The price is looking cheap just oneyear after the deal. During that time, Chicago's Downtown and itsNear North neighborhood have experienced a wave of residentialdevelopment announcements unprecedented in the city's history, aboom fueled by people's dissatisfaction with suburban living.

So while much of the attention paid the development has beengiven to the high-tech E-port office and telco hotel, it is the$1-billion Kingsbury Park residential element of the plan that mayturn out to be the most profitable for the residential team, whichis comprised of Centrum and Angelo Gordon. Fishbein says that theKingsbury Park element of the plan is also critical to the ultimatesuccess of E-port. "What we want to create here is a 24-hourcommunity," he says. "This will really be the new community of the21st century, with work, play and living all together that willattract the kind of high-tech tenants we want."