Bill Silverstein’s Beal Properties capped off a North Side buying spree with a rehabbed multifamily asset in high-demand Lincoln Park late last year.
Chicago-based Beal Properties bought the 56-unit apartment building at 656 West Wrightwood Avenue from JAB Real Estate for $14.1 million, according to Cook County public records that show the deal closed in October and was made public last month. Silverstein didn’t return a request for comment.
JAB Real Estate, which is helmed by Frank Campise, Jim Jann and Sam Goldman, picked up the property for $8.6 million in December 2020, when investors were moving in on the area and ramping up sales activity as longtime owners cashed in amid the pandemic. An apartment building next door at 640 West Wrightwood Avenue changed hands in a sale to Andrew Niewiarowski’s investment firm Park Inc. for $5.9 million in a separate deal the same month. The seller had owned both that building and 656 West Wrightwood for more than 50 years, before selling to Park and JAB, records show.
JAB is a longtime fixture in the Chicago multifamily scene that has expanded into Denver, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. The group frequently takes on value-add renovation projects, though a sale this large and this quickly after purchasing a property in Chicago isn’t common for the firm. The company purchased another Lincoln Park apartment complex for $23 million last year from a family that had owned the 159-unit asset called Hampden Court for more than 80 years.
It’s not clear how much JAB spent on renovating 654 West Wrightwood, which was built in the 1930s and is advertised on Beal’s website as gut-rehabbed, or how much the firm profited from the deal. JAB didn’t return a request for comment.
Beal Properties bought an 80-unit building at 944 West Grace Street in Lakeview for $28 million in June. The investment company also bought a 117-unit condominium building at 445 West Wellington Avenue in Lakeview for $30 million in 2018. Both were deconversion deals.
Lincoln Park and Lakeview were among Chicago’s most competitive rental submarkets last year, with a vacancy rate of 3.1 percent in the third quarter of 2022, according to the latest multifamily report available from Marcus & Millichap.