-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
A 22-story vintage Loop office tower, the last building designed by Daniel Burnham, has hit the market, and it’s likely to fetch a price that would result in a loss for its owners. A venture led by Chicago-based Golub & Co. has hired Cushman & Wakefield to sell Burnham Center, a 584,000-square-foot building at 111 W. Washington St., a property the venture bought for $80.3 million in 2019.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Hmm, someone’s gonna take a bath on that building……better bring some soap.
Chicago Loop is now in a Doom Loop
It’s been a while since I’ve been in this building, but what I do remember, is that it is a Class C building with few amenities and needs some serious renovations. The lobby was nice but when I had to visit offices, it was a mix of mostly attorneys, smaller businesses and the like, many of whom I would guess have no intentions to renew their 5 or 10 year leases. That building will be vacant and become a tenement house in my life time.
Imagine being a small business in the loop, signing a lease in 2018 or 2019, and being stuck paying rent on mostly empty offices during the entire pandemic.