Prudential Acquires Retail and Restaurant Space in John Hancock’s Center for Almost $142 Million

By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor

John Hancock Center’s retail and restaurant space has been acquired by Prudential Real Estate Investors for close to $142 million, ChicagoRealEstateDaily.com reports. As previously reported by Commercial Property Executive, a joint venture including Deutsche Bank A.G. and NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. seized the property earlier this year after a joint venture between Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Whitehall Fund and Golub & Co. defaulted on a $400 million loan.

Deutsche Bank and NorthStar took over the commercial space in the building, 897,000 square feet of Class A office space and 172,000 square feet of retail space, along with the parking garage and the broadcast tower. The tower’s 700 luxury residential condominiums are privately owned.

The John Hancock Center, completed in 1970 after a design by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, is the fourth-tallest building in Chicago and the sixth-tallest in the United States. The new owners of the 100-story high-rise are now selling it in pieces—a strategy that aims to offer a higher profit than selling it to a single buyer.

According to county property records, a Prudential affiliate acquired the retail space of the tower in late June. Prudential, the real estate investment trust of New Jersey-based life insurer Prudential Financial Inc., borrowed $74.1 million from JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. to finance the deal. Around the same time, Paris-based Montparnasse 56 Group acquired the Hancock’s observatory for nearly $45 million. The deal was financed through a $36 million loan from a venture affiliated with Missouri-based REIT Entertainment Properties Trust.

Photo Courtesy of: www.johnhancockcenterchicago.com