Sterling Bay To Sell McDonald’s Headquarters

The timing wasn’t great.

Sterling Bay and JPMorgan Asset Management listed their 575,000-square-foot, McDonald’s headquartered office building in Fulton Market in late February. Then Covid hit.

More than seven months later, a buyer has agreed to pay over $430 million for the property at 110 North Carpenter Street, according to Crain’s. The report described the buyers as a high net-worth family office based in Pittsburgh.

If completed, the deal would be the highest price paid for a downtown office building since early 2018.

Sterling Bay and JPMorgan acquired the site in 2014 as part of a $30.5 million purchase of Oprah Winfrey’s four-building Harpo Studios campus. The new office building was then developed.

The duo listed it in the winter for a report $450 million. The fast-food behemoth moved its headquarters from Oak Brook to the nine-story building in June 2018. Its long-term lease of 490,000 square feet runs through July 2033.

Despite the pending sale, Chicago’s office market continues to struggle as companies scale back on office space or exit existing leases amid a work-from-home world. Federal Savings Bank will leave its Fulton Market office space, though it will shift to another location in Logan Square. An office building at 1100 West Fulton Market also recently listed with an asking price of more than $40 million.

[Crain’s] — Sasha Jones