DETROIT—JPMorgan Chase & Co. has just given out another portion of its $100 million commitment to support Detroit's continued recovery through housing development, blight removal, new business creation, parent education, and neighborhood beautification projects. The new grants, which total more than $1.2 million, will support Southwest Housing, Vanguard Community Development Corp., Grandmont Rosedale Community Stabilization Program, Eastside Community Network, Michigan Community Resources, and Community Development Advocates of Detroit. “These targeted efforts provide Detroiters with the local resources they need to invest in the future of their own neighborhoods and create more widely shared prosperity,” says Janis Bowdler, head of community development initiatives, JPMorgan Chase. “By investing in these programs, the quality of entire neighborhoods can improve as housing prices stabilize, blighted homes are removed or renovated, and education programs offer residents the support they need to own a home.”

CHICAGO—DLA Piper has moved its Chicago office to River Point, a 52-story office tower at 444 W. Lake Street, along the Chicago River. The office had previously been located at 203 N. LaSalle. The firm announced in 2013 that it would move into the West Loop tower, one of several trophy office buildings that will open over the next year or so. DLA Piper occupies 175,000 square feet on the ninth through 16th floors in the 1.05 million-square-foot tower, which meets LEED® GOLD standards and was designed by Pickard Chilton. “Our new layout accommodates the needs of a diverse, multi-generational workforce while allowing us to improve efficiency and client service,” says David Mendelsohn, managing partner of DLA Piper in Chicago.

CHICAGO—The owners of New Jersey-based Sitex Group recently promoted Nick Weisnicht to senior vice president from vice president in the firm's Chicago office. “Nick's promotion is recognition of a tremendous individual whose exceptional work consistently exceeds expectations,” says principal David Friedman. “We are extremely proud of him as he continues to assist with the growth of the firm.” Weisnicht joined Sitex in 2013 to spearhead acquisitions, disposition and due diligence. He was previously an associate at Reologic Analytics.

CHICAGO—Sterling Bay has added two new hires to its ranks. Kevin Donohoe and Jesse Slack have each been named vice president and will focus on the firm's growing portfolio and third party leasing assignments. The duo joins from Avison Young where they were members of the firm's landlord representation group. “Kevin and Jesse are a natural fit for Sterling Bay's entrepreneurial, collaborative culture,” says managing principal Andy Gloor. “With a wealth of market knowledge and extensive relationships, they are well positioned to help us as we continue to expand this segment of our business.” While at AY, Donohoe, formerly a senior vice president, specialized in developing and implementing strategic marketing and leasing plans and advising clients in the downtown Chicago office market. Slack handled strategic planning and leasing for the Chicago holdings of CIM Group, John Hancock, McCaffery Interests and Madison Capital while she was at Avison Young.

DEALTRACKER

NORMAL, IL—Triad Real Estate Partners has just completed the sale of an eight-property portfolio of student housing at Illinois State University in downstate Normal. The properties have a total of 391 beds and were all built in the 1980's within about two blocks of campus. The school welcomed a record breaking freshmen class in the Fall of 2016 and has a total enrollment of 21,039, up 1.1% over the previous academic year. This healthy enrollment helped the portfolio achieve occupancy of 99% for the 2016-17 academic year. The seller was an investment group based in Evanston, IL, while the buyer was Champaign, IL-based Green Street Realty. Green Street plans minor renovations in the short term with a long term capital plan to modernize the units and add additional bathrooms to many of the four-bedroom units. Young America Realty manages the properties. The purchase price was undisclosed.

CHICAGO—Buildout, an end-to-end solution for marketing commercial real estate listings, and LDCRE, a free commercial real estate listing platform and listing distribution platform, have just formed a partnership that enables Buildout clients to increase their local and global reach via LDCRE's listing platform and listing distribution network of 500+ news websites throughout the world. This network will grow to 2,000 news websites over the next 24 months. “Our products naturally align to offer brokers a way to maximize their exposure,” says Vishu Ramanathan, chief executive officer of Buildout. “This newest partnership is another step towards our goal of ubiquitous software integration. Our mutual customers get the most value when we, technology providers, work together to make our products integrate and share information seamlessly. Once information is in electronic form you should never have to enter it again.”

BUILDING BLOCKS

CHICAGO—Related Midwest recently announced the official name for its new 300-unit apartment tower at 1035 W. Van Buren: Landmark West Loop. Scheduled to open in August 2017, the 30-story building will offer a mix of studio, convertible, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, along with a full suite of lifestyle amenities. It marks Related Midwest's third luxury rental development in downtown Chicago, following 500 Lake Shore Dr. in Streeterville and OneEleven in the Loop, each of which set rental rate and lease-up records upon completion in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Construction on Landmark West Loop began in October 2015. When it opens in August, it will be the first West Loop apartment tower to deliver in 2017. Lendlease is serving as the project's general contractor, while GREC Architects is executive architect.

CHICAGO—A couple of stories from this week are good examples of the current ebb and flow of the region's real estate market. On the ebb side are several developments in the world of retail. Sears announced it would continue shrinking the number of office employees at its Hoffman Estates headquarters. Hundreds were laid off recently, but officials from the iconic retail giant say they need to make additional cuts. And if that were not enough, Macy's recently said it was considering shrinking its footprint within the company's flagship store on State St. But that latter story also shows that amidst the decline of traditional retail, other sectors in Chicago continue to exhibit strength. One of the possibilities that Macy's will explore involves transforming a portion of the State St. store into class A creative offices, much as it did with its historic outpost in downtown Seattle. Considering the steady flow of suburban firms into the CBD, it's not difficult to imagine offices in Chicago's Macy's attracting tenants willing to pay top dollar. That's one reason landlords and developers are so bullish on the CBD. Willis Tower, for example, just secured the National Restaurant Association as a new tenant, a sign that the $500 million makeover of Sears' former headquarters will be a success. And a group of developers just paid $65 million to acquire a few underutilized acres in Fulton Market, now home to Google and many other rising firms. Therefore, even though many of companies that once epitomized American retail are in retreat, developers in the office market are setting the stage to attract new blood.

BY THE NUMBERS

SPRINGFIELD, IL—Although a tight inventory makes the statewide market for single-family homes and condos look a bit uncertain for the rest of 2017, it did get off to a good start, according to Illinois REALTORS®. Statewide home sales in January totaled 8,502 homes sold, up 1.2% from 8,404 in January 2016. Furthermore, the median price in January was $172,000, up 5.5% from January 2016. “The bitter winter weather everyone anticipates in January never really materialized, and as a result it looks as if plenty of buyers were out looking for homes,” says Illinois REALTORS® president Doug Carpenter, managing broker of Coldwell Banker Honig-Bell in Orland Hills. “Because inventories are still so tight, January was seen by many as a good opportunity to get out in advance of the busier spring selling season.” The time it took to sell a home in January averaged just 69 days, down from 79 days a year ago. Available housing inventory totaled 49,724 homes for sale, a 15.5% decline from January 2016 when there were 58,830 homes on the market.

NEWS & NOTABLES

DETROIT—JPMorgan Chase & Co. has just given out another portion of its $100 million commitment to support Detroit's continued recovery through housing development, blight removal, new business creation, parent education, and neighborhood beautification projects. The new grants, which total more than $1.2 million, will support Southwest Housing, Vanguard Community Development Corp., Grandmont Rosedale Community Stabilization Program, Eastside Community Network, Michigan Community Resources, and Community Development Advocates of Detroit. “These targeted efforts provide Detroiters with the local resources they need to invest in the future of their own neighborhoods and create more widely shared prosperity,” says Janis Bowdler, head of community development initiatives, JPMorgan Chase. “By investing in these programs, the quality of entire neighborhoods can improve as housing prices stabilize, blighted homes are removed or renovated, and education programs offer residents the support they need to own a home.”

CHICAGO—DLA Piper has moved its Chicago office to River Point, a 52-story office tower at 444 W. Lake Street, along the Chicago River. The office had previously been located at 203 N. LaSalle. The firm announced in 2013 that it would move into the West Loop tower, one of several trophy office buildings that will open over the next year or so. DLA Piper occupies 175,000 square feet on the ninth through 16th floors in the 1.05 million-square-foot tower, which meets LEED® GOLD standards and was designed by Pickard Chilton. “Our new layout accommodates the needs of a diverse, multi-generational workforce while allowing us to improve efficiency and client service,” says David Mendelsohn, managing partner of DLA Piper in Chicago.

CHICAGO—The owners of New Jersey-based Sitex Group recently promoted Nick Weisnicht to senior vice president from vice president in the firm's Chicago office. “Nick's promotion is recognition of a tremendous individual whose exceptional work consistently exceeds expectations,” says principal David Friedman. “We are extremely proud of him as he continues to assist with the growth of the firm.” Weisnicht joined Sitex in 2013 to spearhead acquisitions, disposition and due diligence. He was previously an associate at Reologic Analytics.

CHICAGO—Sterling Bay has added two new hires to its ranks. Kevin Donohoe and Jesse Slack have each been named vice president and will focus on the firm's growing portfolio and third party leasing assignments. The duo joins from Avison Young where they were members of the firm's landlord representation group. “Kevin and Jesse are a natural fit for Sterling Bay's entrepreneurial, collaborative culture,” says managing principal Andy Gloor. “With a wealth of market knowledge and extensive relationships, they are well positioned to help us as we continue to expand this segment of our business.” While at AY, Donohoe, formerly a senior vice president, specialized in developing and implementing strategic marketing and leasing plans and advising clients in the downtown Chicago office market. Slack handled strategic planning and leasing for the Chicago holdings of CIM Group, John Hancock, McCaffery Interests and Madison Capital while she was at Avison Young.

DEALTRACKER

NORMAL, IL—Triad Real Estate Partners has just completed the sale of an eight-property portfolio of student housing at Illinois State University in downstate Normal. The properties have a total of 391 beds and were all built in the 1980's within about two blocks of campus. The school welcomed a record breaking freshmen class in the Fall of 2016 and has a total enrollment of 21,039, up 1.1% over the previous academic year. This healthy enrollment helped the portfolio achieve occupancy of 99% for the 2016-17 academic year. The seller was an investment group based in Evanston, IL, while the buyer was Champaign, IL-based Green Street Realty. Green Street plans minor renovations in the short term with a long term capital plan to modernize the units and add additional bathrooms to many of the four-bedroom units. Young America Realty manages the properties. The purchase price was undisclosed.

CHICAGO—Buildout, an end-to-end solution for marketing commercial real estate listings, and LDCRE, a free commercial real estate listing platform and listing distribution platform, have just formed a partnership that enables Buildout clients to increase their local and global reach via LDCRE's listing platform and listing distribution network of 500+ news websites throughout the world. This network will grow to 2,000 news websites over the next 24 months. “Our products naturally align to offer brokers a way to maximize their exposure,” says Vishu Ramanathan, chief executive officer of Buildout. “This newest partnership is another step towards our goal of ubiquitous software integration. Our mutual customers get the most value when we, technology providers, work together to make our products integrate and share information seamlessly. Once information is in electronic form you should never have to enter it again.”

BUILDING BLOCKS

CHICAGO—Related Midwest recently announced the official name for its new 300-unit apartment tower at 1035 W. Van Buren: Landmark West Loop. Scheduled to open in August 2017, the 30-story building will offer a mix of studio, convertible, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, along with a full suite of lifestyle amenities. It marks Related Midwest's third luxury rental development in downtown Chicago, following 500 Lake Shore Dr. in Streeterville and OneEleven in the Loop, each of which set rental rate and lease-up records upon completion in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Construction on Landmark West Loop began in October 2015. When it opens in August, it will be the first West Loop apartment tower to deliver in 2017. Lendlease is serving as the project's general contractor, while GREC Architects is executive architect.