CHICAGO—New York-based Atlas Real Estate Partners and its partners Marc Realty Residential and Angelo Gordon recently finalized the sale of 777 South State, their 330-unit student-housing property in Chicago's South Loop, to Bill O'Kane's Group Fox. The partners got $85 million for the 882-bed property, significantly more than the $59 million they paid just two years ago. The big return has to be gratifying considering they endured some initial criticism.
A 2013 story in Crain's quoted Robert Bronstein, president of the Scion Group LLC, a Chicago-based student housing investor, who said the partners' plan to market the tower as a summer housing option for interns or other employees showed they were underestimating “the marketing and turnover costs of what is essentially an extended-stay hotel.”
“The results pretty much speak for themselves,” Arvind Chary, managing principal at Atlas, now tells GlobeSt.com. “We were very confident at the outset that this would be a successful development. When we bought the property, it was only used for nine months each year, so the lack of a summer housing program meant it was not being operated as efficiently as it could.”
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
