Chicago developer Michael Reschke, already a familiar name in the downtown hotel conversion game, has pulled off a roughly $16 million takeover of the Burnham Center at 111 West Washington Street in the Loop. The deal untangles a long running capital dispute and sets the stage for a major remake of the building’s middle floors into a 250 to 300 room luxury hotel, while keeping some office space intact. The 21 story, roughly 584,000 square foot tower was deeply underoccupied at the end of 2025, turning it into low hanging fruit for adaptive reuse.
How Reschke Pulled Off the Takeover
To lock down control, Reschke paid about $5 million to induce landowner Jay Shidler to step aside and another roughly $10 to $11 million to clear back taxes and delinquent bills tied to the property, according to The Real Deal. He told the outlet he is planning a luxury hotel with 250 to 300 keys on the middle floors and a fine dining restaurant and bar on the northeast corner of Washington and Clark. In his view, hotels currently offer more predictable returns than the slog of trying to lease out deep vacancy in the downtown office market.
Tenant Flight and Conversion Pipeline
Reschke has been steadily building a portfolio of troubled Loop properties and high profile conversions, a trend that industry reporting has tracked. Bisnow notes his growing hotel pipeline in the central business district. The Burnham Center’s slide sped up when major tenants shrank or walked away. Grubhub significantly cut its footprint and shifted space to the Merchandise Mart in March 2024, adding more pressure on vacancies, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Foreclosure Roots and the Ground Lease Tangle
The takeover caps a saga that dates back to Golub & Company’s 2019 purchase and a ground lease deal with the Shidler Group that later fell apart, culminating in a Wells Fargo foreclosure suit in July 2024, according to earlier reporting. The Real Deal reported that the split ownership of the land and the building made refinancing a headache and pushed the asset into distress, opening the door for investors buying discounted notes and for developers hunting for conversion opportunities.
What Comes Next
Whether the Burnham Center can be turned into a viable hotel will likely depend on incentives and historic rehab tools that have underpinned many downtown conversions, including TIF dollars, federal and state historic tax credits and Cook County’s Class L abatements, according to federal reporting and local analyses. HUD documentation notes that those programs often plug financing gaps for adaptive reuse projects. Reschke still has to strike deals with lenders, secure incentives and sign an operator before any public timeline for the conversion is on the table.
