Pandemic Was A Gut Punch, But Fulton Market Multifamily Is Back On Track
July 9, 2020 Brian Rogal,
Like many people in the early days of the pandemic, Marquette Cos. President Darren Sloniger underestimated just how big of a disruption the coronavirus would become. But the full scale of it was made clear when the institutional backer of the firm's plan for
several new apartment towers on the 1400 block of West Randolph Street in Fulton Market called to say it was backing out. "That was a big punch in the gut," Sloniger said. But the much-anticipated development is coming back to life.
The Naperville, Illinois-based firm had counted on breaking ground this year on the development, which would eventually bring more than 500 new units to the neighborhood, easily one of the hottest residential areas in the city. To keep it on track, Sloniger decided to set aside the company's traditional way of financing construction deals. Instead of securing institutional financing for the whole project at once, he broke it into several portions and began looking for private investors who still believed in Fulton Market's potential. "I just started picking up the phone and dialing for dollars," he said Thursday during Bisnow's Chicago Deep Dish: Construction and Development Update webinar. "I got really good traction right off the bat," he added.
So much so that he secured the financing needed for the $85M 1454 West Randolph St., a planned 243-unit building. "We literally closed it at 8 last night, so I'm feeling a little bit better today," Sloniger said.
He expects even better news lies ahead for the project that was dead in the water just a few months ago.
The institutional partner that hesitated back then agreed to return, this time to help finance the more than $100M 1400 West Randolph, a 278-unit proposal that Sloniger said will close in about four weeks. "We were lucky that we had a strong project in an area that everybody loves," he said. Another factor in convincing invest
Read more at:
https://www.bisnow.com/chicago/news/...medium=Browser