Photograph: Dennis Rodkin
List Prices: vary
Sale Prices: vary
The Property: A new 39-story, mansard-roofed high rise called Lincoln Park 2550.
Since the first move-ins began last July, a building towering over Lincoln Park has been stacking up sales of multi-million-dollar condos. There have been at least 21: Three sales for over $4 million each, another three for between $3 million and $4 million each, and at least 15 for between $2 million and $3 million each, according to my research in the Cook County Recorder of Deeds data. John Murphy, one of two partners in the building’s development firm, would not specify what any individual condos have sold for, but confirmed that my findings were “probably accurate.”
How pricey is this building? So pricey that a member of the billionaire Pritzker family is only the second-biggest spender on one of its condos. While the Chicago Tribune reported last week that Nicholas Pritzker paid $4.16 million for a condo in the building (it’s the second item, here), the top-priced sale in the building is 14% higher than that. In February, David R. Schwartz, a commercial real estate executive, paid $4,700,500 for a condo on the 27th floor, according to the Recorder’s files. I haven’t been able to reach Schwartz.
Not everything in the building is priced in the millions. The lowest recorded purchase price I could find in the county records was $795,000, and Crain’s reported last fall that a flipper investor had about 15 units that were being priced at about $700,000. There have been numerous sales for between $1 million and $2 million. When I wrote about the building while it was under construction in spring 2011, the list prices ranged from $885,000 to $14 million. (The building’s name has since changed from 2520 to 2550.) Murphy wouldn’t say precisely what the top prices are now. “We have a few of them that get up into the tens of millions,” he said.
Murphy would not say how many of the building’s 235 condos are sold, but here’s something that speaks to the recent pickup in the real estate market: He says about half the multi-million-dollar sales I called about are contracts that were struck in the months since the building started opening in July. (That’s as opposed to being contracts that were struck a few years ago during construction and are closing now when the units are ready for occupancy.)
Designed by Lucien LaGrange, architect of some of the city’s most Francophiliac condo buildings during the boom years, Lincoln Park 2550 has Lincoln Park’s lagoon and historic wooden pergola right outside the front door, a 1.5-acre private park in the back, and inside, a theater, a children’s play area, and even a shrine to Mother Cabrini, a Roman Catholic saint.
Compared to high-end downtown condo towers like Trump and the Waldorf Astoria, Murphy says, “we have a park-like setting, with close proximity to all the urban amenities and restaurants. It’s a different experience than living downtown.” He said about half the buyers have been suburban transplants, and that “we’ve had a few” buyers from other countries.
Price Points: There’s one more way that Lincoln Park 2550 reaches above its neighbors: The price of renting a condo there. On Friday, a tenant signed a lease on a 1,561-square-foot east-facing unit on the seventh floor. The $7,500 monthly rent breaks down to $4.80 a square foot. That’s higher than nearly anything else in the city as a signed lease; the only one higher is a penthouse at the Waldorf Astoria that was rented for $5 a foot during 2012, according to Aaron Galvin, managing broker of Luxury Living Chicago Realty. The agent who represented it, ReMax Premier Properties’ Lissa Weinstein, said it was the building’s only available east-facing residence for rent. The tenants move in at the end of April, she said. The owner is from Russia and not yet ready to move in, Weinstein said.
Listing Agent: Tere Proctor of Arc Residential, 312-320-0863