“There has been significant investment in the neighborhood, and national retailers have continued to pile in,” he says. “So that justifies the investment.” Even when the economy had bottomed out, Blackhawk on Halsted was “essentially fully leased, and we knew that value would come back quickly after the recession. We weren't worried.”

Retail tenants include The Tile Shop, and REI, the retailer's only location in Chicago. Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group, Advocate Health Care and Town & Country Pediatrics anchor the development's medical office space. The British School was recently purchased by a publically-traded entity, Lukas points out, and coupled with a 25-year lease extension, helped trigger even more interest from institutional investors.

Over the last 15 years, Structured Development has led the transformation of this neighborhood. It completed several projects, including the NEWCITY mixed-use development across the street from Blackhawk on Halsted. And Lukas says they plan to use their new windfall to fund even more development in the neighborhood.

The company has already bought another neighboring property from Big Deahl Productions, a television production company. Lukas says they hope to begin demolition this fall and deliver by mid-year 2018 a mixed-use complex of about 200,000 square feet. “We're going to do retail there as well.” He expects to get a lot of interest from retailers when he attends the upcoming ICSC conference in Chicago.

“This is an ideal shopping district for the people who live in these affluent areas,” he adds. “If you're sitting at home on a Saturday, and need to buy a few things, you are not going to go all the way downtown.” And the intersection of North, Clybourn and Halsted is now at the center of all this activity. “There are only a few pieces of land left where you can do new retail. In a ten-block radius you can hit every type of store in the world.”

CHICAGO—Investors have recently bought some of the city's top downtown properties for whopping prices, and now a foreign investment fund has paid big money for a mixed-use complex in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

A fund represented locally by LaSalle Investment Management purchased Blackhawk on Halsted, a 224,000-square-foot property at 1460 N. Halsted St. for $130 million, according to Cook County property records. It's a big gain for Chicago-based Structured Development, which completed the property in 2009 and bought out its partner in 2012 for $82 million.

The fully leased retail and medical office property consists of three structures: an 82,901-square-foot building that houses the British School of Chicago, which has a lease that runs through 2040; an adjacent mixed-use building that includes 48,016 square feet of retail and 93,287 square feet of medical office space; and a 550-vehicle parking garage.

Although the price may seem like a big number for the Clybourn Corridor, Daniel Lukas, principal and co-founder of Structured Development, tells GlobeSt.com that it makes sense considering the neighborhood's growth as an important retail center for city dwellers.

“There has been significant investment in the neighborhood, and national retailers have continued to pile in,” he says. “So that justifies the investment.” Even when the economy had bottomed out, Blackhawk on Halsted was “essentially fully leased, and we knew that value would come back quickly after the recession. We weren't worried.”

Retail tenants include The Tile Shop, and REI, the retailer's only location in Chicago. Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group, Advocate Health Care and Town & Country Pediatrics anchor the development's medical office space. The British School was recently purchased by a publically-traded entity, Lukas points out, and coupled with a 25-year lease extension, helped trigger even more interest from institutional investors.

Over the last 15 years, Structured Development has led the transformation of this neighborhood. It completed several projects, including the NEWCITY mixed-use development across the street from Blackhawk on Halsted. And Lukas says they plan to use their new windfall to fund even more development in the neighborhood.

The company has already bought another neighboring property from Big Deahl Productions, a television production company. Lukas says they hope to begin demolition this fall and deliver by mid-year 2018 a mixed-use complex of about 200,000 square feet. “We're going to do retail there as well.” He expects to get a lot of interest from retailers when he attends the upcoming ICSC conference in Chicago.

“This is an ideal shopping district for the people who live in these affluent areas,” he adds. “If you're sitting at home on a Saturday, and need to buy a few things, you are not going to go all the way downtown.” And the intersection of North, Clybourn and Halsted is now at the center of all this activity. “There are only a few pieces of land left where you can do new retail. In a ten-block radius you can hit every type of store in the world.”