Amancio Ortega, the founder of the fashion retailer Zara, reportedly acquired the 51-story office tower at 1 N. Wacker Drive for about $550M, one of the priciest office deals in the country this year.
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Irvine Co. sold the more than 1.4M SF office property to Ortega's family office in a deal Tuesday that includes the assumption of a $353M CMBS loan Irvine took out in 2021, CoStar News first reported. The sale hadn't been posted in Cook County property records as of Wednesday evening.
Only two larger full-building office trades occurred nationwide in 2026: the $730M sale of Park Avenue Tower in New York City, which closed in January, and the $691M sale of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco in April.
In Chicago, the deal is the largest outright office sale since the Aon Center sold for $712M in 2015. It is the highest valuation since 100% of the equity interest in the Bank of America Tower sold for $210M in March 2022, a deal that put the tower's implied value at more than $1B.
The 51-story tower at 1 N. Wacker was completed in 2001 and is about 94% leased to a tenant roster that includes PwC, UBS and Fitch Ratings, according to CoStar.
Ortega's real estate investment arm, Ponte Gadea, is no stranger to the city, making another major splash in Chicago when it dropped almost $232M on the 492-unit apartment tower at 727 W. Madison St. in 2023.
This is the first time Irvine Co. has exited a Chicago property, CoStar reported. It still owns two other trophy office towers in the city: 71 S. Wacker Drive and 300 N. LaSalle St.
The deal for 1 N. Wacker has been in the works for months, with Irvine Co. reportedly beginning to shop the property as early as January.
Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director Jeff Skender said at last month's Bisnow Chicago lease conference that he was interested in a 1 N. Wacker sale because the property has top-of-the-market rates and minimal vacancy.
"The question to owners is: OK, you're trying this hard to maintain your face rates. What is the reward in this capital markets environment on that reversion when you bring that to market?" Skender said at the end of September. "And I think 1 N. Wacker is going to be a really good test of that."
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