New Owners Choose Transwestern to Bring Back Congress Center

CHICAGO, IL-Transwestern announced on Monday that the new owners of the Congress Center, a 16-story tower at 525 W. Van Buren that has endured a chaotic year, had picked their firm as its new exclusive leasing agent.

Transwestern has a big job ahead. The building’s previous owners spent most of 2012 wrangling with lenders and tenants, damaging the property’s reputation. Crain’s Chicago Business reported last June that lenders were claiming the owners were in default on a loan for the building. Meanwhile, many tenants were claiming the owners owed them money for making improvements. Transwestern said that the occupancy rate was only 74 percent, far below the average for downtown Chicago.