In a sign of how fast downtown offices can fall out of favor, Time Equities and partner JK Equities have quietly put the eight-story Lightner Building at 1006 South Michigan Avenue on the market as a fully entitled office-to-residential flip. The South Loop timber loft is being pitched as a ready-to-build bundle, complete with approvals for 49 apartments and street-facing retail space.
Brokers familiar with the offering say it is being shopped at roughly $100 to $105 per square foot, or about $8.5 million, and that permits are expected to be in place before closing so a buyer can move from an inked deal to demolition and build-out with minimal lag time.
What’s for sale
As reported by The Real Deal, the 80,500-square-foot Lightner Building is being marketed as a turnkey conversion, with Kiser Group broker Andy Friedman dubbing it a “development in a box.” The package includes floor plans, historic-preservation approvals, and other predevelopment heavy lifting completed after office tenants cleared out during the pandemic.
Time Equities director Robert Singer told The Real Deal that the office market, and this particular building, “failed,” and that offloading a smaller, pre-permitted project to a local adaptive reuse specialist was the most logical way forward.
Plans and approvals
The conversion has already cleared Chicago’s key land use hurdles. The Chicago Plan Commission approved the interior conversion layout, and the City Council amended the planned development zoning to allow residential use, according to Urbanize Chicago.
Approved drawings call for 49 loft-style apartments, a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, stacked above roughly 4,000 to 4,400 square feet of retail space, a bike room, and a compact loading area off the alley. The development team agreed to provide on-site affordable units along with a payment-in-lieu under the city’s affordability rules, which allowed the project to advance without exterior alterations to the building’s landmarked facade.
Price, costs, and incentives
Sellers are marketing the property at roughly $100 to $105 per square foot, or about $8.5 million, while market underwriting pegs construction at about $250 to $260 per square foot, for a minimum all-in cost near $20 million, The Real Deal reports.
The project is structured to capture an estimated $2.5 million to $3 million in historic-preservation tax credits and qualifies for Chicago’s Affordable Housing Special Assessment Program, which can reduce commercial property assessments by roughly 25 to 35 percent. That stack of credits and assessment relief is a central part of the sales pitch that the numbers can pencil out for the next owner.
How this fits the wider trend
Packages like 1006 South Michigan, where much of the entitlement grind is already finished, are showing up more often as larger owners shed borderline office assets and local players step in to do retrofit work. Nationally, office-to-apartment conversions have surged in recent years, and the pipeline reached roughly 90,000 units as of early 2026, with Chicago among the markets with the most proposed conversions, according to Smart Cities Dive.
For a buyer that can execute an adaptive reuse project efficiently, this listing is being framed as a rare, nearly turnkey shot at adding new apartments on Michigan Avenue in a tight development climate.
Next steps for buyers
JK Equities and its partners originally bought the Lightner Building in 2015 and have already carved out some value, including selling air rights and a roof cell-tower lease, as they folded the parcel into the neighboring 1000M site plan, according to JK Equities.
With zoning approvals, permits, plans and tax incentives lined up, the listing is aimed squarely at a local developer or investor who wants to step in and start construction with as few bureaucratic speed bumps as possible.
