Ken Griffin Takes Loss with $16M Chicago Condos Sale

Ken Griffin’s losses on luxury Chicago real estate expanded to almost $30 million with sales of the final two floors out of the four he assembled within the No. 9 West Walton Street condo tower.

The billionaire Citadel founder sold the 35th and 36th floors of the building Tuesday for $15.9 million, down from the more than $24.6 million he paid for the unfinished units as part of a package that also included the 37th and 38th floors he bought in 2017 for $58.75 million, according to public listing data.

Griffin never finished or moved into the units, and the top two floors were sold last year to his political rival, Governor J.B. Pritzker and his wife MK Pritzker, for $19 million, marking last year’s priciest home sale in Chicago. Griffin had spent over $34.1 million on those two units.

With Griffin’s exit from No. 9 Walton — the 67-unit building completed in 2019 by developer JDL — the billionaire’s selloff of high-end Chicago condos is a step closer to completion, and each deal has shaved a substantial chunk of his initial purchase price.

He took a hit in the 2022 sale for $10.2 million of a unit in Chicago’s Waldorf Astoria, down $2.1 million from the price Griffin paid for it in 2014. And he also sold a Park Tower unit to filmmaker George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson in 2023 for $11.2 million, down from the $15 million he paid for the 8,000-square-foot unit in 2012.

The buyers of the floors directly below the Pritzkers aren’t yet identified in public records, although one of Griffin’s agents, Emily Sachs Wong, said earlier this year when a unit went under contract that the governor was not the buyer. It’s unclear whether there are separate buyers for each floor, or if the same buyer purchased both.

Along with Sachs Wong of @Properties Christie’s International Real Estate, Nancy Tassone of Jameson Sotheby’s served as the listing agent. Tassone also represented the buyer. She declined to comment, and Sachs Wong didn’t return a request for comment.

The 36th floor’s listing asked $8.5 million and closed at that price, while the 35th floor was initially listed in 2022 for $14 million and closed at $7.4 million.

Griffin steadily listed and sold off a handful of condos following his announcement in 2022 that he was moving his family and Citadel’s headquarters to Miami. He still has at least one more under his control that’s on the market. The 67th-floor penthouse unit within Park Tower, at 800 North Michigan Avenue, is for sale asking $15.8 million. He stands to potentially avoid another loss in value on that one, if it fetches close to its asking price, as Griffin paid $6.9 million for the unit back in 2000.