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Urban Partnership Bank, the successor to failed ShoreBank, said Levoi Brown, 33, formerly an asset management director with General Electric Real Estate, has joined the South Side bank as the new director of commercial real estate.
Brown will be responsible for Urban’s commercial and multi-family real estate portfolio in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. He reports to Urban Chief Executive William Farrow. Get the full story »
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | The 11-room Lakeview mansion that Grammy-winning R&B singer R. Kelly once owned underwent a significant price cut on Monday, from $3.89
million to $3.5 million. Get the full story »
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Red Sea Group, an Israeli real estate firm, has acquired a former Northern Trust check-processing plant in the South Loop with plans to spend about $200 million to convert the eight-story building at 840 S. Canal into one of the city’s biggest data centers. Get the fully story>>
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | Reality TV star Bill Rancic, the Chicago entrepreneur, motivational speaker and real-estate developer who won the first season of Donald Trump’s
reality show “The Apprentice,” has sold a five-room condo unit in the Park Tower building on North Michigan Avenue for $1.425 million, less than 20 months after he paid $1.185 million for it. Get the full story »
In a ruling that may affect foreclosures nationwide, Massachusetts’ highest court voided the seizure of two homes by Wells Fargo & Co. and US Bancorp after the banks failed to show they held the mortgages at the time they foreclosed.
Bank shares fell, dragging down the broader U.S. stock market, after the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on Friday issued its decision, which upheld a lower court ruling. Get the full story »
A view of Sportsman's Park in Cicero as it is demolished, Jan. 5, 2009. Wirtz Beverage Illinois has its eye on the now-vacant land there. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Wirtz Beverage Illinois announced Thursday that it plans to build a $70-million, 600,000-square-foot distribution center in Cicero, which would include 100,000 feet of office and conference center space. The new center, if approved, would incorporate Wirtz’s other offices and warehouses in Schaumburg, Wood Dale, Bensenville and Elk Grove Village.
Most of Wirtz’s 1,000 employees would move to the new center as well, the company said in a statement. Get the full story »
From Bloomberg News | Jones Lang LaSalle has hired a New York-based office leasing team from rival Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the second addition of a major brokerage from Cushman in less than a year.
General Growth Properties Inc.’s incoming chief executive is beginning to shuffle the mall owner’s executive ranks in advance of his arrival.
Sandeep Mathrani, the Vornado Realty Trust veteran who officially will join General Growth as CEO on Jan. 17, disclosed in an email sent to General Growth employees late Tuesday that long-time executives Robert Michaels and Ron Gern will leave the mall owner. Get the full story »
A view of Kingsbury Plaza, located at Grand and State, in 2008. (Charles Osgood/Chicago Tribune)
Tenants at Kingsbury Plaza, an apartment building in River North, had a New Year’s resolution made for them by the management firm The Habitat Co. this year: Quit smoking.
The alternative: Move.
Kingsbury notified residents late last year that as of Jan. 1, it would begin a year-long transition to becoming a smoke-free building, meaning that smokers have 2011 to either kick the habit or find someplace else to live. Get the full story »
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | WMAQ-Ch. 5 news anchor Marion Brooks on Monday closed on the sale of her seven-room West Loop condo for $450,000.
The recently divorced Brooks, 44, told Elite Street in Septemeber that she had listed the 30th-floor condo because of a desire to live closer to her NBC Tower office in Streeterville. At that time, the three-bedroom condo in the SkyBridge high-rise was available for $429,000. Get the full story »
Bank of America said it agreed to pay Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $2.8 billion to settle claims that it sold the mortgage finance companies bad home loans.
Bank of America shares climbed 4.5 percent in early trading Monday. Analysts said many investors had worried the bank would have to buy back billions of dollars of home loans it sold to investors at the height of the housing boom.
“This takes away a nice headline risk” for Bank of America, said Alan Villalon, a senior bank analyst at Chicago-based Nuveen Investments. Get the full story »
From Globe St. | Langham Hotels and Resorts has partnered with Oxford Capital Group LLC to open a luxury hotel in 330 N. Wabash, the Mies van der Rohe-designed riverfront building that previously housed IBM’s Midwest headquarters. The new Langham Chicago Hotel, expected to open in 2012, will occupy floors two through 13 of the 52-story building. Get the full story>>
The era of near 4 percent mortgage rates has ended after a quick rate rise since early November. But some industry experts think that may be a good thing for the flagging housing market.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has risen to 4.86 percent from 4.17%, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey. In the Bankrate.com weekly survey, the rate has risen to 5.02 percent — crossing the 5 percent mark for the second time in three weeks — after being as low as 4.42 percent as recently as early November.
Rates haven’t been this high since May and forecasters now predict them to remain between 5 percent and 6 percent for all of 2011. Get the full story »
Contracts for pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose faster than expected in November, though sales remained below “normal” activity levels, a real estate trade group said on Thursday.
The National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in November, rose 3.5 percent to 92.2 from a downwardly revised 89.1 in October. The index showed sales were 5 percent lower than the 97.0 reading in November of last year. Get the full story »
The home that the Willborns wanted to buy at 3300 S. Normal Ave. in Bridgeport. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
The Bridgeport couple accused of violating fair housing laws in the failed sale of their million-dollar home are refuting Justice Department charges that they refused to sell it to an African-American family.
In separate responses filed this month with U.S. District Court in Chicago, Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia deny that they engaged in discriminatory housing practices in their dealings with George and Peytyn Willborn, who made several offers to purchase the Sabbia’s sprawling Bridgeport home.
The Sabbias also deny that Daniel Sabbia told listing agent Jeffrey Lowe that Sabbia would prefer not to sell the home to an African-American but that he didn’t care who bought it if the price was right, and deny that Lowe forwarded a sales contract to the Sabbias for signature. Get the full story »
