Bradford Allen Scores Funding for Suburban Chicago Apartments

Bradford Allen’s large-scale suburban Chicago project recently got the go-ahead from city officials and, more crucially, a lender, overcoming constrictions on the area’s multifamily pipeline resulting from a tight lending environment and high construction costs.

Chicago-based brokerage Bradford Allen’s investment arm landed a $72 million construction loan from Walker & Dunlop last month, allowing the developer, along with design partner Moceri + Roszak, to begin construction on a 301-unit apartment complex with 26,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, public records show. Construction is expected to be completed by July 2026.

The apartment complex is the first component of a $130 million mixed-use campus, set to become an improved gateway to Arlington Heights, that will include a medical office at the site of the former Daily Herald newspaper building, and at least two other retail buildings.

The village of Arlington Heights approved $17.8 million in tax increment financing last month to support Bradford Allen and Moceri + Roszak’s $130 million master planned community.

The development team has been assembling land for the 16-acre development at the southeast corner of Arlington Heights and Algonquin roads since 2019.

Development of the 8-story residential building will kick off the first phase of a four-part plan to reshape the tract, near the Jane Addams Tollway, a project expected to take up to eight years. Even though zoning was approved and demolition completed, construction was delayed until the public funding was secured, along with the construction loan.

The project kicks off at a time when suburban multifamily apartment complex investment sales are outperforming those in Chicago’s urban core. Although supply in the broader region has been hampered by high debt and construction costs, the city’s downtown market has dealt with the added challenge of investors perceiving Cook County’s property tax environment as overly complicated and unpredictable.

Meanwhile, RentCafe recently ranked suburban Chicago and Miami as the No. 1 multifamily markets in the country.

That contrast in attitudes toward the suburbs and the city has been noticeable in some recent sales.

Earlier this month, developer The Opus Group sold a suburban complex known as Dash Downers Grove to Chicago-based investment firm Nuveen for $65 million or about $389,000 per unit.

Also this month, JLL Income Property Trust sold its 28-story West Loop apartment building at 180 North Jefferson Street for $76.3 million. The price was 20 percent less than the $96.4 million it paid for the building in 2016. The 274-unit building sold for $278,000 per unit.