South Loop's Eleven Thirty Tower Sells for $166M After 59 Years Under One Owner

A 43-story apartment tower at 1130 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago's South Loop has sold for $166 million, changing hands for the first time since it was built in 1967. Draper & Kramer, the Chicago developer that constructed Eleven Thirty nearly six decades ago, sold the 656-unit property to Laramar Group, ending one of the longest single-ownership runs among the city's major high-rises.

The deal, first reported by The Real Deal, makes Eleven Thirty the second-largest Chicago apartment transaction of 2026, trailing only the $167 million sale of the Pavilion Apartments near O'Hare International Airport to R.I.G. Capital in May. Eleven Thirty is currently 94% occupied, and the building's ground-floor retail includes roughly 12,053 square feet of fully leased commercial space, according to Laramar Group, which lists Yolk Restaurant, Lakeview Market, and Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa among the tenants.

The sale caps a winding path to market for Draper & Kramer. The developer first listed Eleven Thirty for sale in early 2023 with a different brokerage firm but didn't complete a deal, later relisting the tower in October 2024. At that time, per The Real Deal, the offering included an assumable loan from Allianz Life Insurance carrying an $85.8 million balance, a 3.7% interest rate, and a 2047 maturity date — a financing perk meant to entice buyers during a period of elevated interest rates. Laramar ultimately secured new debt instead of assuming that loan, per sources cited by Crain's.

A Legacy Owner Reshuffles Its Portfolio

Eleven Thirty's sale extends a broader divestment pattern for Draper & Kramer, which has been shedding older flagship assets to realign its capital. The company previously sold its 1,869-unit Lake Meadows complex on the South Side for $161 million and the 275-unit Aspire Residences in the South Loop for $59 million to Antheus Capital, according to The Real Deal.

Laramar, founded in 1989 and co-headquartered in Chicago and Denver, now manages more than $2.4 billion in real estate assets spanning over 6,500 residential units across 33 states, per its own account. The firm has previously owned other large multifamily complexes, including San Francisco's 1,114-unit Fillmore Center.

What's Next for the Tower

Laramar plans to expand and upgrade Eleven Thirty's gym, modernize its common areas, and add remote-work stations, moves aimed at boosting rents at a building that had asking rents of $2,306 per unit in 2024, per The Real Deal. At an estimated $253,000 per unit, the sale price landed above the roughly $240,000 per-unit median for Chicago multifamily deals in the first half of 2026, according to Bisnow, but well below the roughly $379,000 per unit paid for the 332-unit tower at 73 E. Lake Street earlier in 2026, a deal Hoodline covered in February.

Cook County's Board of Review reduced Eleven Thirty's assessed market value on appeal to approximately $142 million in 2025, down from an initial assessment of roughly $170 million, Bisnow reports — a tax-appeal strategy commonly used by owners of major Cook County high-rises ahead of a sale.

A Rebounding Chicago Apartment Market

The Eleven Thirty deal lands amid a broader surge in Chicago apartment investment. Citywide apartment deals totaled $2.5 billion in the first half of 2026, according to The Real Deal, while multifamily transaction activity across the city rose by roughly 50% compared with the same period in 2025, per Bisnow. Suburban apartment sales volume climbed even faster, up 67% year over year, The Real Deal reports, and overall Chicago-area apartment deal volume nearly doubled 2025 levels.

Constrained new supply is a key driver: new developments built in the Chicago area represented just 0.8% of total inventory over the past 12 months, per The Real Deal, and multifamily developers are increasingly converting unused downtown office space into apartment offerings rather than building from scratch. Eleven Thirty's South Loop address also offers tenants a 96 Walk Score, 100 Transit Score, and 93 Bike Score, with direct access to the CTA Roosevelt station and proximity to Grant Park and the proposed $750 million Chicago Fire Stadium, according to Laramar.