Busy apartment developer
lands financing for $116
million Uptown project
By Editor Crain's Chicago
Cedar Street has scored nearly $75 million in debt financing for a 342-unit office-to-apartments conversion in Uptown, one of several multifamily projects in Chicago developer’s construction pipeline.
Bank OZK, formerly Bank of the Ozarks, has provided a $61.3 million construction loan for the redevelopment at 5050 N. Broadway, a former Combined Insurance office building, according to Cedar Street. Cedar Street said it also has also secured $13 million in mezzanine financing and raised $41 million in equity for the $115.5 million project.
Cedar Street has been riding the apartment construction wave, breaking ground this summer on a 16-story, 129-unit apartment tower in River North and recently launching a 288-unit redevelopment of a former Salvation Army property on the West Side. The firm also is on track to wrap up the conversion of a vintage Loop office building into 175 apartments next summer and recently began leasing a 149-unit development in River North.
Cedar Street is kicking into a higher gear in a Chicago apartment market that’s strong, but about to get a lot more crowded, mainly downtown. Developers are on track to complete a record 4,400 apartments downtown next year and 4,000 in 2020, according to Integra Realty Resources, a Chicago consulting firm. The surge in supply could make it harder for landlords and developers to fill their buildings without offering deals on rent.
That’s one reason Cedar Street is glad to have a project in Uptown, where developers have been less active.
“We still remain bullish on the stuff we’re doing downtown, but candidly it is easier” on the North Side, said Cedar Street Managing Partner Will Murphy. “There’s just less competition.”