A North Side apartment tower just landed a Texas owner. The SoNo East high-rise in Lincoln Park changed hands this week, with Austin-based RPM Living paying about $125 million for the 22-story, 324-unit building at 840 West Blackhawk Street. The deal highlights how hungry investors still are for stable rental properties in Chicago's tight multifamily market.
Deal details
Crain's Chicago Business first reported the sale, identifying RPM Living as the buyer and pegging the price at roughly $125 million. Crain's published its report on July 7 as part of broader coverage of recent multifamily trades across the city.
Property and market facts
Industry reporting lists SoNo East as a 324-unit tower at 840 West Blackhawk Street. CoStar reports the building is nearly 98 percent leased and that asking rents average about $3,065 per unit, numbers that go a long way toward explaining investor interest.
Public records and a transaction write-up indicate the seller was PGIM Real Estate and that the purchase price was about $125.2 million. The Real Deal calculated the price at roughly $386,000 per unit and noted PGIM previously bought the property in 2012 for about $105.3 million, a long hold that tracks with how many institutional owners have approached this cycle.
The SoNo East trade lands amid a run of large multifamily deals in the Chicago area. In May, the $167 million Pavilion Apartments sale near O'Hare reset expectations for what big, stabilized portfolios can command, according to analysts.
Representatives for RPM Living and PGIM did not immediately respond to requests for comment, The Real Deal reported. For tenants, the ownership change is not expected to trigger any instant shakeup, although neighbors and market watchers will be keeping an eye on whether the new landlord rolls out capital improvements or tweaks its rent strategy in the months ahead.
