CHICAGO—Last year, when Chicago-based UrbanInnovations, a company with a lot of property in the RiverNorth neighborhood, repurchased, at a significantly lower price, several officebuildings in the West Loop's Greektown neighborhoodthat the firm had sold to another investor in 2005, the propertyhad a 30% vacancy rate. But the company just signed a new17,000-square-foot lease at 322 S. Green St., one of the buildings,to Elevate Energy, a non-profit organization,formerly known as CNT Energy, which assists usersin accessing more efficient energy sources.

Aaron Zaretsky handles leasing for the nowfully-leased 322 S. Green St., and has increased its occupancy by42%. Elevate Energy was represented by WilliamDonahue of Lichter Realty, Inc. Theproperty was recently renovated and includes newly expandedrestrooms, corridor and lobby upgrades, a bicycle storage room,fully built-out office suites and fiber connectivity from multipleservice providers.

Urban Innovations repurchased the Green St. building and theadjacent 833 W. Jackson Blvd. from Wells Fargo foronly $14 million, or about $4 million less than they sold them forin 2005. The previous owner was probably undercapitalized,Mike Scilingo, president of Urban Innovations,told GlobeSt.com, and unable to keep up the common areas andprovide proper services. “He was just overextended,” and perhapsmore importantly, may not have understood the Greektown officemarket.