Still, the Chicago commercial real estate market as a whole is definitely on the radar screens of many Asia-based investors. Dalian Wanda Group heads the development of the mixed-use Wanda Vista Tower at 375 E. Wacker Dr., set to become the city's third-largest building and the largest real estate investment by a Chinese company in Chicago. Overall, IL has received more Chinese investment than any other state except CA and NY.

And it's also clear that Asian investors have a high regard for the US market in general, and the five core cities in particular. “They don't know about Las Vegas,” Ressler says, or any of the smaller cities of the interior. The typical Asian investor thinks “there is a lot less risk in the core cities due to their economic diversity and highly-educated workforces.”

And even though it's part of the nation's interior, he expects that Chicago will get its share of future investment from Asia. For one thing, its role as an inland port and transportation hub gives Chicago the same credibility as the coastal cities.

Ressler adds that it has been reported that Asian investors, especially those from China, have a very deep pool of money on which to draw. Chinese insurers, for example, have so far used only a small portion of their funds earmarked for overseas investment, and the remainder could be as much as $275 billion.

“The US real estate market is the least risky in the world,” he says. “They are going to put a big chunk of that here.”

CHICAGO—Asian investors have been mostly favorable toward Chicago's office market. Along with four other core US cities, in the past few years it has seen a number of blockbuster sales for trophy properties. But even though Asian investment in such trophy properties quadrupled in 2016, Chicago was shut out of such investments last year, according to a joint study between Commercial Café and Yardi Matrix.

The partners tabulated the top 20 US office transactions in each year since 2012. New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco, the four other core areas that historically have most interested Asian investors, each had at least three Asian-led office property acquisitions that made the top 20 largest deals list in 2016, and all had recorded growth in terms of these investments.

Since 2012, Chicago had eight of these mega-deals, worth a total of $1.7 billion. But it has not seen such a major purchase close since 2015, when Samsung SRA Asset Management paid $314 million for the Harris Bank Building and Harris Bank Addition II at 111 W. Monroe St. and 115 S. LaSalle St.

“It may just be a matter of timing,” Doug Ressler, senior research officer at Pierce-Eislen, a Yardi Co., tells GlobeSt.com, and other major investments are just around the corner. Another possibility is that these investors did put significant funds into Chicago office properties, but as silent partners. But that, he adds, is speculation.

Still, the Chicago commercial real estate market as a whole is definitely on the radar screens of many Asia-based investors. Dalian Wanda Group heads the development of the mixed-use Wanda Vista Tower at 375 E. Wacker Dr., set to become the city's third-largest building and the largest real estate investment by a Chinese company in Chicago. Overall, IL has received more Chinese investment than any other state except CA and NY.

And it's also clear that Asian investors have a high regard for the US market in general, and the five core cities in particular. “They don't know about Las Vegas,” Ressler says, or any of the smaller cities of the interior. The typical Asian investor thinks “there is a lot less risk in the core cities due to their economic diversity and highly-educated workforces.”

And even though it's part of the nation's interior, he expects that Chicago will get its share of future investment from Asia. For one thing, its role as an inland port and transportation hub gives Chicago the same credibility as the coastal cities.

Ressler adds that it has been reported that Asian investors, especially those from China, have a very deep pool of money on which to draw. Chinese insurers, for example, have so far used only a small portion of their funds earmarked for overseas investment, and the remainder could be as much as $275 billion.

“The US real estate market is the least risky in the world,” he says. “They are going to put a big chunk of that here.”