Commerz Real has agreed to acquire a historic Loop office building that once served as the Chicago Public Schools headquarters.
The German investment management firm is buying the National building at 125 South Clark Street from Blue Star Properties and investment partner Wolcott Group, according to the Chicago Tribune.
An MB Real Estate report listed the sale price at $202 million.
Blue Star and Wolcott bought the 20-story, 582,000-square-foot building for $28 million in 2015. It launched a major overhaul of the 111-year-old building designed by Daniel Burnham the next year, securing a $100 million construction loan to pay for the work.
JLL’s Bruce Miller and Nooshin Felsenthal represented Blue Star in the deal.
The building’s tenants include the Revival Food Hall, Paper Source, Shure and WeWork, which occupies four floors. The building is 89 percent leased, according to the Tribune, which is slightly better than the average vacancy rate Downtown, where rents have remained strong.
But it sits close to an area of the Financial District that’s set to face challenges, as several large banks could be vacating large amounts of space in the next few years. [Chicago Tribune] — John O’Brien