Dealmaker: Sonnenblick-Eichner Secures $48M For Historic Mixed-Use Building

Sonnenblick-Eichner Co., Beverly Hills, Calif., arranged $47.5 million to refinance maturing debt on 208 South LaSalle Street’s office and retail components. The 1.1 million-square-foot Chicago mixed-use building encompasses a full city block in downtown Chicago’s Financial District.  

The property’s owner converted the lower 12 floors from office space into a 610-room JW Marriott hotel. Floors 13 through 17–totaling 208,000 square feet of office space–and 11,500 square feet of street-level retail secure the loan. The hotel component and the top four office floors were not part of the collateral.

“Our client had the vision of taking a historically designated office building and converting the lower 12 floors into one of the finest hotels in the city while simultaneously improving and repositioning the remaining office components of the property,” said Sonnenblick-Eichner Principal David Sonnenblick.  

Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance, New York, supplied the seven-year non-recourse financing.

Built in 1914 as one of the largest modern commercial office structures in the world at the time, the former Continental and Commercial National Bank headquarters joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

“There is tremendous capital available today for well-thought out commercial real estate assets with strong sponsorship,” said Sonnenblick-Eichner Principal Elliot Eichner. “This loan refinanced a $35 million mortgage that was a part of a $321 million facility we arranged for the ownership two years ago. That was a very complex structure, comprised of four different loans and included first mortgage debt and mezzanine financing.”