Ross Perot Jr. Tees up Chicago North Shore Deal

Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood could have a significant influence on a Chicago suburb’s economic future.

The Dallas-based development firm is in talks to purchase the Trinity International University campus in Bannockburn, with the school’s massive site set to sell for about $35 million as it shuts down operations. It could become the site of a huge redevelopment into another use.

Billionaire Ken Griffin is just one property away from an expensive — and jaded — exit from Chicago’s luxury housing market. He sold two more floors of unfinished penthouse units on the 35th and 36th floors of the No. 9 Walton condo tower on the Near North Side this week, for $15.9 million combined.

The sale marked the latest loss for Griffin in a string that now totals nearly $30 million off his purchase prices for the handful of high-end condos he had acquired over the years. “The decline in Chicago real estate values is yet another bill coming due from years of failed leadership in Illinois,” a spokesperson for Griffin said.

In Fulton Market, developer Alex Najem’s firm Fulton Street Cos. and investment partner Fred Latsko hired a Newmark team to find a buyer for a portfolio of their retail properties. They assembled it for $40 million in late 2021 and 2022.

Another loft office landlord in Chicago is on the outs with its lender. Investor Ruben Espinoza’s River North portfolio of commercial buildings on Ohio Street was hit with a foreclosure lawsuit, one of several legal and financial troubles he’s faced in recent months. He’s far from alone among loft office owners, as there have been multiple to hand keys back to their lenders since interest rate hikes combined with dropoffs in demand for workspace dented values.

There’s more distress in the suburbs, too. The court-appointed receivership overseeing the former Pheasant Run Resort property in St. Charles — which had its 16-story tower and other unused buildings demolished last year after they were damaged by arson — is suing to foreclose on property owner Eightfold as industrial redevelopment advances next door.