Sterling Bay In Talks To Buy Former Boeing Chicago HQ Tower
Sterling Bay is reportedly nearing a deal to purchase Boeing's former headquarters in Chicago, three years after the aerospace giant moved its operations from the Windy City to Arlington, Virginia.
Sterling Bay executives are in talks to buy the 36-story, 776K SF office building at 100 N. Riverside Plaza for between $25M and $30M, according to Crain's Chicago Business. The deal hasn't closed and could still fall apart, sources told the outlet.
Boeing declined to comment to Bisnow. Sterling Bay couldn’t immediately be reached.
The aerospace company signed a 15-year lease at the building in 2001 after moving its headquarters from Seattle, and it bought the tower for $165.2M in 2005. Boeing is only selling the leasehold interest in the building, as the land beneath the tower is owned by New York-based Stahl Organization. A 99-year ground-lease agreement runs until 2084, according to CoStar.
Cushman & Wakefield brokers have been marketing the building to a small pool of possible buyers.
The tower, completed in 1989, is about 52% leased, Crain's reported. Its largest tenant is Here Technologies, which has an almost 280K SF lease that expires in 2032, though the company has attempted to sublease about half of that space. Boeing still occupies just shy of 70K SF and is considering a leaseback agreement as part of a potential sale, sources told the outlet.
Sterling Bay’s potential deal for the Boeing tower comes on the heels of the unraveling of the stalled Lincoln Yards megadevelopment, with Sterling Bay set to lose some or all of the 55-acre site. Earlier this month, JDL Development and Kayne Anderson Real Estate announced an agreement to buy the northern portion of Lincoln Yards from lender Bank OZK, which seized the land earlier this year.
