Investors Poised To Flip Evanston's Tallest Building A 2nd Time

EVANSTON, IL — Evanston's tallest building is back on the market, as its owners have listed it less than five years after it was last purchased, Crain's Chicago Business reports. A joint venture of Chicago-based Golub and Company and New York-based Investcorp want $87 million for the the 49-year-old building.

The asking price reported by Crain's is up nearly 30 percent on the price paid by the investment group when it bought the 339,000-square-foot building in October 2013, according to property records.

The 20-story tower's offices and retail space is almost completely occupied with more than 30 tenants. Its ground floor was formerly home to Lyfe Kitchen but has recently reopened as Kinship and Next of Kin.

Golub has already flipped Orrington Plaza once, according to Crain's. Another investment venture controlled by company bought the same building in 2002 and sold it in 2006 for a 26 percent profit.

The building is missing many of the amenities found at similar office buildings in Chicago, Crain's reports, but presents good value to investors because there isn't much prime office space available in the area. Overall vacancy in Evanston's Class A office buildings is 5.9 percent, compared to 15.8 percent in other suburbs and 13.5 percent in downtown Chicago.

Two other large office buildings have sold in Evanston since April 2016. The 10-story building at 500 Davis St. was bought out of foreclosure and flipped for more than $3 million profit after just over two years.

Another property, an eight-story building at 1007 Church St., was purchased via a defaulted loan in for less than $10 million in 2014 and sold in late 2015 for nearly $27 million.

"You don't have a lot of really good office products in Evanston," the corporate managing director of a commercial real estate firm told Crain's. "They're not going to do a ton of development in Evanston for buildings like this."

» Read more from Crain's Chicago Business