Dealmaker: HFF Arranges $209M Construction Loan for Future McDonald’s Headquarters

Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, Houston, arranged a $209 million construction loan for 110 North Carpenter, McDonald’s Corp.’s future global headquarters, in Chicago’s Fulton Market District.

HFF represented the developer, a partnership comprising Sterling Bay, Chicago, and institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, New York. It placed the construction loan with Bank of America, Charlotte, N.C., and Wintrust Financial. , Rosemont, Ill. 

Scheduled for a late 2017 or early 2018 delivery, 110 North Carpenter will include 485,000 square feet of office space with ground-floor retail in the city’s West Loop near downtown. McDonald’s Corp. will relocate from its five-building campus in Oak Brook, Ill. to the new nine-story office building, which will occupy the site that previously housed Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. 

Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Sterling Bay bought Winfrey’s property for $30.5 million in 2014.

HFF Senior Managing Director Michael Kavanau, Managing Director Tim Joyce and Associate Director Christopher Knight led the debt-placement team.

“Due to the long-term lease and investment-grade credit profile of this development as well as the best-in-class sponsorship and location, we received very strong interest from the lending community and were able to deliver terms and conditions superior to a traditional construction loan,” Joyce said.

The property sits two blocks from the Morgan Street “El” station and less than one mile from Chicago’s primary interstate highways, I-90, I-94 and I-290.

HFF previously worked for Sterling Bay to secure construction financing through Bank of America for the Fulton West project six blocks northwest of 110 North Carpenter.