Two of Fulton Market’s most prominent players are listing five retail properties in the buzzy neighborhood.
Fulton Market Companies’ Alex Najem and Fred Latsko are looking for a buyer for 1144 West Fulton Market, 1101 West Fulton Market, 112 North May, 220 North Aberdeen and 165 North Morgan Street. A parking lot at 351 North May is included in the offering as well.
The Najem and Latsko venture bought 165 North Morgan in 2021 for $6.7 million and spent about $33 million on the remaining properties in the portfolio in 2022.
Since then, the pair have renovated the properties and signed several long term tenants including Pizza Lobo at 165 North Morgan, high-end furniture maker MillerKnoll at 1144 West Fulton Market and outerwear brand Fjallraven at 1101 West Fulton Market.
“[Alex] did a great job repositioning the assets. There’s been a tremendous amount of capital spent by the tenants and the landlord,” said Keely Polczynski, the Newmark broker heading the listing.
The recent leases will set a new buyer up for longterm cash growth, she said.
Najem said he hopes selling the properties will free up capital for other his ongoing projects.
“We have sites farther west, and we want to develop those,” Najem said of his holdings in Fulton Market.
At nearby 1200 West Fulton, Najem’s firm, along with Chicago-based JDL Development, are building a massive, two-tower apartment complex with ground floor retail totalling over 1,000 units.
The proposal, which was approved by the Chicago Plan Commission in October, calls for 43-story and 37-story towers, with 20 percent of units reserved as affordable housing to comply with city ordinances. It will also include 124,000 square feet of commercial space split into 24,000 square feet of ground floor retail and 100,000 square feet dedicated for use as a gym.
The development is getting back on track after it was previously slated for life sciences offices. Najem scrapped those plans after it became evident that the life sciences market was over supplied.