Crain's Chicago Business

A former professional race car driver who's now a real estate developer is revving the engine of his latest project, a plan to build luxurious garage condos where car buffs can house and show off their vehicles. Romeo Kapudija's proposal to put 121 garage condos, a clubhouse and a niche brand car dealership on a 21-acre site on Rand Road received approval from Lake Zurich's village board Nov. 17. He expects to start construction in early spring and have a little less than half the units, with prices starting at $549,000, and the dealership ready for occupancy by the end of 2026. Luxe Corsa, as the project is called, won't be the first garage condos in the Chicago area. There are already similar developments in Naperville, Mundelein and Joliet, and more proposed in Barrington and far west suburban Gilberts. Designed by OKW, a Chicago architecture firm, the 13-building complex "will feel like you're in Las Vegas, not Lake Zurich," Kapudija said. The panelized exteriors will have abundant lighting and sizzle, and each garage condo's interior will have ground-level space for cars and a mezzanine level above that owners can finish with a kitchen or other features (separate from the purchase price). Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gex_qjkd

A mansion in Winnetka quietly sold for $34.5 million earlier this month, the highest price ever for an existing home in the Chicago area and $3 million above the last record-setter, which sold just two months ago. Though it sets a new bar, the price comes with a caveat. The sale price of $34.5 million included the sale of some of the mansion's contents along with the sale of the real estate, said Jena Radnay, the @properties Christie's International Real Estate agent who represented the property. She said she could not break out the real estate price from the contents and will be putting the sale in the multiple-listing service today at the full $34.5 million. The Real Deal, which was first to report the sale, pegged the real estate value as $32.5 million, which suggests the contents went for $2 million. Even at that price, the mansion topped the $31.25 million sale in September by Muneer Satter and Kirsten Hertel of their lakefront estate. Both of these homes come in at less than the $58 million that Citadel's Ken Griffin spent on a stack of unfinished penthouse floors in a Gold Coast tower in 2017. They also trail venture capitalist Justin Ishbia's plan to spend at least $77.8 million developing a new Winnetka estate. But those were not purchases of finished, existing homes, as this sale is. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gS6Vs3Wa

Apartments at top-of-the-market buildings in Chicago keep getting more expensive, boosted by a muted construction pipeline and a growing pool of renters willing to pay top dollar for the nicest buildings in the trendiest neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Chicago’s more attainable housing stock is slipping away, and the city’s overall affordability could be dwindling. The cost of apartments is going up in most big cities across the country, but Chicago is leading the pack: Rents here grew more than in any other metro area in October, with the typical asking rent rising 6% year over year, according to a report from online real estate marketplace Zillow. The metro area ranked 39th out of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas on Zillow’s affordability index as of October, compared to 38th the previous year. And rents are poised to keep climbing as Chicago stares down a major supply shortage: About 9,800 rental units are under construction, accounting for about 1.7% of the metro area’s total inventory, with just 1,500 units expected to be completed by the end of the year. Other factors are boosting rental demand in addition to the supply crunch. People are renting for longer — the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the U.S. has risen to an all-time high of 40 — and amid economic uncertainty and still-elevated interest rates, the financial flexibility of renting is more appealing. Read more in this month's Crain's Forum: https://lnkd.in/gFREWBWM

JPMorgan Chase is trying to unload an overdue $270 million loan tied to a West Loop office building, one of the largest examples of distress in the downtown office market rife with it. The lender has hired brokers from Jones Lang LaSalle to seek a buyer for the mortgage backed by the 46-story office building at 500 W. Monroe St., according to a marketing flyer. The property is owned by a venture of San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital, which defaulted on the debt by failing to pay it off when it matured in January, the flyer said. JLL is framing the offering as an opportunity for a buyer to take control of the 966,924-square-foot tower via a deed in lieu of foreclosure, a common resolution for distressed loans that allows a lender to seize a property from a borrower without a lengthy court process. The Monroe Street tower joins a long list of distressed office buildings in and around the Loop since the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the business of owning workspace. The remote work movement hammered demand, while elevated interest rates have decimated property values, stymieing landlords with maturing debt. Rampant foreclosures have infected the downtown office market and hampered its post-pandemic recovery, while some owners have sought to surrender their buildings to their lenders to resolve outstanding mortgages. The Illinois Center complex and office buildings at 330 N. Wabash Ave. and 350 N. Orleans St. are among the recent large-scale cases of distress. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/g7BRzVac

Forget wining and dining a client. How about springing for a helicopter ride to Michigan wine country? Vertiport Chicago, a commercial helicopter facility located blocks from the Illinois Medical District, is ramping up its business with tours that take clients winery hopping on the southwestern coast of Michigan. The round-trip tours, which start north of $9,000, have attracted both international and local business folks, said Vertiport executive director Daniel Mojica. They’re looking to entertain, incentivize or reward employees and clients. “(It’s) executives from Chicago who have done all the steakhouses already, they’ve done the Michelin stars, and they really need to either close a deal, or they’re rewarding and recognizing (employees),” Mojica said. Vertiport’s tours join a growing number of ventures that have sprung up post-pandemic built around getting Chicago executives out of the city and into the rest of the Midwest. Businesses have re-evaluated how they spend travel and entertainment budgets over the past half decade. They’ve shifted from multiple smaller events — like happy hours or client dinners — to bigger experiences that facilitate team building in an environment where remote work persists. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gfT7FgM6

There’s a trend in Chicago restaurants lately that Crain’s recommender-in-chief particularly loves: A bar that’s just as inviting as the dining room. Noriko Handroll Bar is one of the best examples in the city. The engaging chefs at the Milwaukee Avenue sushi restaurant make sitting at the bar an interactive experience, and the room’s moody ambience evokes a Tokyo speakeasy. Noriko serves dishes like crudo and smoked edamame, but the specialty is handrolls, a casual style of sushi meant to be eaten by hand. Noriko offers a wide array, including spicy scallop, cuttlefish and wagyu with truffle. A few handrolls will fill you up. Sign up for The Dining Table newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/g4dpKs-d Read the full recommendation here: https://lnkd.in/gnsn2nJ5

Chicago’s hospital landscape is shifting fast — rising labor costs, new regulations and rapid merger activity are reshaping how leaders operate. Join us on Dec. 3 at Crain’s Hospital CEO Breakfast to hear directly from the executives steering that change: Michael Antoniades of UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial,  Dr. Erik Mikaitis of Cook County Health, Dia Nichols, FACHE of Advocate Health Care and Sean T. O'Grady, FACHE of Endeavor Health. This is a must-attend event for leaders who want to stay ahead of the evolving health care industry. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gy6FrKUX

Alinea, the crown jewel of Chicago’s fine-dining scene, lost one of its prized Michelin stars last week. The demotion was a rare experience among three-star restaurants, which represent the upper echelons of the dining world. The news sent the same question to the lips of nearly everyone who has even an inkling of fine-dining knowledge. Why? What happened in the kitchen of chef Grant Achatz — whose name is often accompanied by adjectives like genius or artist — that could have caused the world-renowned Michelin Guide to issue two stars instead of three? The world may never know. Not exactly, anyway. Michelin keeps its methods secret and its inspectors anonymous. It issues vague guidance on star criteria. Inspectors look for “outstanding cooking,” Michelin says on its website. The key is consistency. But beyond that, the how-to for winning and maintaining stars is somewhat of an educated guess. “Mystery is part of their thing. Them being culinary ninjas sort of makes them who they are,” said Phil Vettel, the longtime former Chicago Tribune restaurant critic. “They will not pull the curtain back even to the slightest degree.” There are some clues as to what happened with Alinea, which Michelin first awarded three stars in its 2011 guide, the first year it came to Chicago. The world-renowned restaurant turned 20 this year, and critics have been scrutinizing it anew. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gmmE_NC4

Influence doesn’t meet only in boardrooms. Dealmaking in Chicago often happens at restaurants, where civic leaders and business execs can wine and dine each other. Where do those movers and shakers go when they want great food, dependable service and a setting that makes an impression? We asked, and they delivered. Crain’s surveyed our Who’s Who list of the most influential people in Chicago with a simple question: What is your favorite restaurant? No restrictions, no qualifiers. We left it to them to define what makes a place great. Some spots came up again and again. Others reflect personal rituals, neighborhood pride or admiration for specific chefs. The picks highlight the depth, diversity and flavor of local dining — and hint to where Chicagoans might find their boss’s boss. See the full list of restaurants here: https://lnkd.in/gTHeaBHG

The day after he was elected to the City Council in early 2023, Bill Conway took a call from Michael Fassnacht at World Business Chicago. The two had met on the campaign trail, Conway says, but did not know each other well. Fassnacht got right to the point. “We need to sit down and talk about everything that’s going on in your ward,” he implored the alderman-elect. Conway remembers the conversation as firm and polite. “But it was like I worked for him,” he says. The exchange speaks to the reputation of a self-described super-connector — a shuttle diplomat, tipster and provocateur all rolled into one, ranging around the tripartite world of business, politics and nonprofits. Square-jawed at 58, a lean 6-foot-2 and with a durable German accent, Fassnacht is easily recognizable as a verbal doppelgänger of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Beginning as an ad man, then as a mayoral adviser and chief of World Business Chicago and now back in the private sector as an executive at the construction and design firm Clayco, Fassnacht has emerged as a bubbly, indefatigable cheerleader for the city while gaining a reputation in some quarters as a social media-obsessed self-promoter. Poetry Foundation CEO Michelle Boone, a former Navy Pier official and Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events commissioner, considers Fassnacht an incarnation of the late Lois Weisberg, a busybody who can translate the argot of business, politics and culture across all vocabularies. “Almost a corporate whisperer,” she says. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gdsM83pQ