More Top Picks Best Router Tables For Small Shops
player ready...The mystery deepens over potential financing for Chicago’s attempt at a new world’s tallest building.
Scott Toberman, president of European American Realty Ltd., the developer of the proposed stratospheric broadcast/condo/office tower at 7 S. Dearborn St., said he would disclose details of his funding sources two weeks after the plan was approved by the City Council, which occurred Sept. 29.
No such disclosure has been forthcoming, however. Calls to Toberman have not been returned.
Reliable sources say venerable Chicago real estate firm Draper & Kramer is talking to Toberman about getting in on the 112-story, $500 million project. A company official didn’t respond to a call on the subject.
Early this year, Draper and Kramer cashed in on its equity in its headquarters building at 33 W. Monroe St., selling it to Prime Group Realty Trust for $94.5 million.
As a residential developer, Draper and Kramer might be interested in a part of the action on the 350 condominiums in the upper part of the proposed building. Plus, having sold its headquarters, the firm could be a major tenant for the office space in the building as well.
But Toberman, who says he understands skepticism over his ability to raise the money, hasn’t mentioned that possibility.
Meanwhile, other downtown office projects move ahead. The Alter Group has topped off the steel at Dearborn Plaza, its 17-story, 380,000-square-foot building in River North. Completion is expected by the second quarter of 2000.
Yet all this activity may be short-lived. A report by Chicago-based Real Estate Research Corp. and the Counselors of Real Estate says John Buck Co.’s decision to go ahead with the 1.3 million-square-foot 1 N. Wacker Drive, coupled with Toberman’s venture, which has 765,000 square feet of office space, could “slam shut” the office development window downtown.
Hiffman Shaffer shakeup: A major shakeup is in the works at Chicago’s Hiffman Shaffer Associates, perhaps the biggest privately held full-service commercial real estate firm in the area.
Sources say the firm’s office, industrial and retail brokers are splitting off from its main operation to set up shop in the suburbs, perhaps under a new name.
“It’s like the breakup of a rock band,” said one insider. “Disparate parts are going off in different directions and forming new rock bands. They have a different idea of what a tune is, though they used to make pretty good music together.”
Earlier this year, Hiffman Shaffer, a longtime leasing and development powerhouse with a local focus, started a senior living division to develop retirement facilities around the country.
Whether or not that move may have stretched the organization too thin or caused discord, the company does seem to be having an identity crisis.
Hiffman Shaffer President Robert Smietana acknowledged through a spokeswoman that the company’s growth is spurring an “internal reorganization,” with people being moved and business units refocused.
“They’re not being sold, they’re not being bought, they’re not being spun off,” the spokeswoman said. “They’re looking at the business and figuring out the best way to allocate resources.”
Upscale immunization: Life is fabulously chichi in Hinsdale, in case you didn’t already know.
At one retail complex, residents of the western suburb can get exotic coffee drinks at Starbucks, exotically healthful foods at a Wild Oats grocery store and now immunization for exotic diseases on their frequent trips to exotic lands.
MIDC LLC–the acronym is for Metro Infectious Disease Consultants–has leased 12,000 square feet at the shopping center at 500 E. Ogden Ave. in Hinsdale, partly to provide immunization and preventive medications for travel abroad. CB Richard Ellis represented MIDC in the long-term lease.
The company, which is affiliated with Travelers Medical and Immunization Service LLC, also has offices in Chicago, Gurnee and Crystal Lake.
More Top Picks Best Water Filters For Well Water
And if you don’t want a shot of foreign microbe serum, try a double shot of espresso. It should take care of anything.