Ready to keep a longtime Chicago company headquartered in the city, Mayor Richard M. Daley has given approval to a tax increment financing grant of about $8 million to USG Corp.
A mayoral spokesman confirmed that the city has tentatively agreed to assist the building materials manufacturer, though details must still be ironed out. A USG spokesman declined to comment.
The decision paves the way for USG to move its headquarters to a new, midrise office tower at 550 W. Adams St. to be built by Chicago developer Steven Fifield, sources said.
With a headquarters staff of 630 workers, USG is currently the lead tenant at 125 S. Franklin St., a 35-story building that is named after the firm and owned by Government of Singapore Investment Corp.
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USG is expected to take about 225,000 square feet in the new tower, which Fifield has previously said would be 16 stories tall and contain 419,000 square feet of office space.
Fifield, chairman and chief executive of Chicago-based Fifield Cos., could not be reached for comment.
Hyatt Printer’s Row shopped: Chicago-based opportunistic real estate investor Marc Realty Co. is testing the market for the sale of the Hyatt Printer’s Row after gaining control of the 162-room hotel from a group that includes developer Paul Stepan.
Marc has hired Scion Group LLC, a real estate firm that specializes in non-profit and educational facilities, to explore a sale to an academic institution or student-housing operator who would convert the property into dormitories, sources said.
Robert Bronstein, president of Scion, confirmed that his Chicago-based firm had been hired, but declined to comment on the owner or an asking price.
The hotel, at 500 S. Dearborn St., could be converted into student housing for 342 students, according to a study by Chicago-based architectural firm VOA Associates.
Marc gained control in September after Stepan, a former top fundraiser for Daley, was apparently unable to pay off an $18.3 million loan from Nomura Asset Capital Corp., according to property records and sources.
In 1998, the Nomura loan helped bring the hotel out of bankruptcy after a default on a controversial loan from a Cook County employee pension fund.
Marc gained control by paying off Nomura. Marc contributed additional cash in the form of a mezzanine loan and obtained a $10.9 million first mortgage from Parkway Bank and Trust according to sources and property records .
Sale in Bolingbrook: Boston-based TA Associates Realty LLC continues to target the Chicago industrial market, buying a 574,000-square-foot distribution center in southwest suburban Bolingbrook that is long-term leased to Georgia Pacific Corp.
Real estate firm Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler Inc. represented the seller, a pension fund client of Chicago-based RREEF America LLC.
Built in 1997, the building in the Corporate Crossing Business Park was sold for about $37 a square foot, or more than $21.2 million, sources said.
Jeffrey Kahan, a principal in Rosemont-based CBK, declined to comment on the price.
`Donald’ factor? Strong sales at top-dollar prices by Donald Trump helped lift the downtown housing market during the fourth quarter, as sales of new homes rose 63 percent, to 835 units, compared with the same period last year, says the Downtown Chicago Residential Benchmark Report by Appraisal Research Counselors Ltd.
For Trump’s proposed 90-story skyscraper on the site of the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York developer had 265 contracts during the first four months of marketing, at prices now averaging $725 a square foot, the report says.
“It is likely that a large percentage of these buyers may be speculators,” the report says. “Whether it is speculators or just the `Donald factor,’ Trump has managed to outperform . . . the market.”
Source: Appraisal Research Counselors