1 MSF Chicago-Area Office Complex Sells for $78M

By Barbra Murray

500 Park Blvd.

Six years after acquiring One Pierce Place and 500 Park Blvd. in Itasca, Ill., Long Wharf Capital LLC and Hamilton Partners have sold the 976,000-square-foot office complex for $78.3 million. A partnership between Balfour Pacific Real Estate Fund IV and Hamilton Partners now own the Class A metropolitan Chicago property, which last traded in 2011 for $73.8 million.

“This was a prime example of a buyer acquiring high-quality suburban office product at a basis and yield that is unachievable in urban areas,” Bryan Rosenberg, director with commercial real estate and capital markets services provider Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP, said in a prepared statement. HFF marketed the asset on behalf of the seller.

The two-building office complex sits within the 300-acre, master-planned Hamilton Lakes Business Park, sited just five miles from O’Hare International Airport. One Pierce was completed in 1982, offering 525,400 square feet, while the 450,600-square-foot 500 Park was the first to open its doors, having reached completion in 1980.

Both buildings have been renovated within the last five years, and today, the campus is roughly 92.5 percent leased and counts the likes of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Epsilon and Hitachi among its tenants. The property’s occupancy level belies the current conditions of the overall suburban Chicago market, which recorded a third-quarter vacancy rate of 18.8 percent, as noted in a report by commercial real estate services firm CBRE.

Suburban sales hold steady

The third quarter marked suburban Chicago’s most active sales quarter of 2017, according to the CBRE study, and with more transactions under contract and other properties on the market, the momentum is expected to continue through year’s end. “2017 should be in-line with historical institutional investment sales averages of approximately $1 billion,” per the report.

Some of the largest office trades of the year include Bradford Allen Investment Advisors’ recent $75 million acquisition of the 559,200-square-foot Tri State International in Lincolnshire from Principal Financial Group. Earlier in the year, American Landmark Properties purchased Skokie’s 556,000-square-foot Illinois Science & Technology Park from Forest City Enterprises for $77 million, and GlenStar Properties picked up the 966,000-square-foot Schaumburg Corporate Center in Schaumburg, taking the property off the hands of John Hancock for $80 million.

Image courtesy of HFF