A 42-story apartment tower overlooking North Michigan Avenue is back on the market, as developer John Buck looks to cash out of Mila, the 402-unit building he has owned for roughly a decade. The move comes as rents across downtown Chicago keep climbing and investors keep writing bigger checks for apartment buildings across the city.
According to CoStar News, reporter Ryan Ori wrote that Buck is seeking a buyer for the building at 200 North Michigan Avenue after completing a decade of ownership, with the developer looking to capitalize on strong investor demand for rentals in the city. The CoStar report, published Wednesday, is available to subscribers only, limiting what further detail is publicly accessible about the current listing.
Mila is a 42-story, 402-unit apartment building at that Michigan Avenue address, according to The Real Deal, which reported in 2023 that Buck had hired Newmark to market the property. That earlier push came roughly one year after a prior deal to sell the asset fell through, the outlet reported at the time. Newmark Senior Managing Director Elizabeth Gagliardi was identified as leading those marketing efforts, per the same report.
A Decade-Old Tower With a Complicated Sales History
The Mila venture broke ground in 2014, with the first residents moving in during 2016, according to Connect CRE. In 2017, Buck and his partners refinanced the property with a $150 million loan from Axa Equitable Life Insurance, replacing an $89 million construction loan and generating about $61 million in proceeds, the same Real Deal report noted. That financial history underscores just how long the building has been cycling through ownership changes and sale attempts even as it kept drawing renters to its Streeterville-adjacent address.
Rents and Deal Volume Both Climbing Downtown
The timing lines up with a broader surge in Chicago apartment economics. Effective rents across the city rose 3.2% year over year as of the second quarter of 2026, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Downtown rents climbed even faster, averaging $3,124 per unit and $3.88 per square foot, up 5.3% year over year in the same quarter, the firm reported.
That rent growth hasn't been matched by equally strong leasing volume. Cushman & Wakefield recorded just 1,743 units of multifamily absorption through the second quarter, down 59.0% year over year. Occupancy readings diverge depending on the source: Cushman & Wakefield put the citywide rate at 94.9%, above its cited 10-year historical average of 93.8%, while Colliers reported a 96.5% occupancy rate in its own mid-year report, calling it the strongest performance in several years.
Investors Are Paying Up for Chicago Apartments
Sales activity has accelerated alongside the rent gains. Chicago apartment deals totaled $2.5 billion in the first half of 2026, nearly doubling the pace set in 2025, The Real Deal reported. Over the trailing 12 months, Chicago multifamily sales reached $7.2 billion, a 49% jump over the prior 12-month period, according to Matthews.
Recent transactions illustrate the scale of money moving through the market. Laramar Group paid $166 million for the 656-unit Eleven Thirty tower in the South Loop, the second-largest Chicago apartment deal of 2026 so far, per The Real Deal's reporting. That deal trailed only the $167 million R.I.G. Capital paid for the Pavilion Apartments near O'Hare, which the outlet described as the largest Chicago-area apartment sale of the year.
Looking ahead, Northmarq said Chicago's multifamily development pipeline has been shrinking and should continue to taper in the coming months, a trend the firm suggested may help push vacancy below 5.0% in 2027. For a developer like Buck weighing a sale of a decade-old downtown tower, that kind of tightening supply picture could make Mila an easier pitch to prospective buyers, even if the final price tag and timeline remain unknown for now.
