Dealmaker: 303 East Wacker Changes Hands For $182M

Franklin Street Properties, Wakefield, Mass., sold Chicago office tower 303 East Wacker to Beacon Partners, Boston, for $182 million. 

JLL, Chicago, brokered the East Loop sale. JLL International Director Bruce Miller and Managing Director Nooshin Felsenthal represented the seller. Managing Director Keith Largay and Executive Vice President Heather Brown arranged the buyer’s acquisition financing.  

Miller noted the 944,000-square-foot riverfront property has unobstructed views of the Chicago River, Lake Michigan and the city skyline and offers repositioning and value enhancement opportunities.

“The combination of a dynamic and diverse rent roll of high-tech, creative and engineering tenants and the ability to capitalize on tightening market fundamentals in the East Loop was attractive to potential buyers,” Felsenthal said. 

Built in 1980, the 30-story tower has two penthouse levels, 30,000-square-foot floorplates and 11.5-foot ceiling heights.

“An increasingly aggressive finance market enabled Beacon to have a number of attractive financing options to fund their acquisition and repositioning of the asset,” Largay said.   

JLL also represented Merced Capital, Minnetonka, Minn., and Restart Investments, Kentfield, Calif. when they sold Camelback Arboleda, a 179,000-square-foot four-story office building in Phoenix’s Camelback Corridor, for $25.3 million. 

Fenway Capital Advisors, Solana Beach, Calif. acquired the asset. 

JLL Senior Vice President Brian Ackerman and Senior Managing Director Dennis Desmond represented the sellers. Ackerman said Fenway Capital Advisors recognized the value of the building’s location within the Camelback Corridor submarket and its value-add potential.

The property last traded in 2014 when Merced Restart Phoenix Investors I LLC purchased it for $24.9 million from Camelback 1661 LLC.