Bridge Investment buying landmark Loop office tower for $113M

Bridge Investment Group is buying a landmark Loop office tower for $113 million, allowing the building’s owners to make a 26 percent improvement on their initial investment.

The Salt Lake City-based firm is buying the 47-story building at 1 North LaSalle Street from a joint venture of Northbrook-based Hilco Real Estate and a pair of MB Real Estate executives, Kevin Purcell and Peter Westmeyer, according to Crain’s.

The sellers paid $82.5 million for the building in March 2016, and financed the purchase with a $64.5 million loan from BMO Harris, according to public records. They spent about $4 million upgrading the building with new amenities, according to a marketing flyer from HFF, which is representing the sellers.

The sellers had been seeking upward of $125 million for the building, according to a May Crain’s report.

The overall downtown office market has remained strong, and investors have shown particular interest in older properties.

Developer Sterling Bay recently sold an art deco building at 121 West Wacker Drive to Ameritus for $120 million after buying it in 2014 for less than $60 million and spending more than $25 million renovating it. Sterling Bay also sold the 105-year-old GoGo Building to JP Morgan Asset Management in 2015 for $305 million, three years after it bought the building for $100 million and spent tens of millions on renovations.

Bridge is buying a tower that became a Chicago landmark in 1996 and in 1999 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is 86.2 percent leased, up from 81 percent when Hilco and the MB executives. Rents also increased during that period by nearly 17 percent, according to the HFF flyer.

Title company Property Insight is the building’s largest tenant, with a little more than 17,000 square feet. HFF brokers Jaime Fink, Jeff Bramson and Sam DiFrancesca are representing the sellers of 1 North LaSalle. [Crain’s] — John O’Brien