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The owner of a 52-story office tower along the Chicago River has been hit with one of the largest foreclosure lawsuits ever for a property in the city, another high-profile example of the distress infecting the vacancy-plagued downtown office market.
A venture of Boston-based real estate firm Beacon Capital Partners defaulted on its $370 million mortgage backed by the office building at 330 N. Wabash Ave., according to a complaint filed earlier this month in Cook County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit, filed by lender Wells Fargo on behalf of bondholders in the loan, alleged the Beacon entity failed to pay the tower's most recent property tax bill and an interest payment on the mortgage that was due last month.
The 1.2 million-square-foot skyscraper designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adds to the historic wave of distress that has swept across the central business district in recent years. The pandemic- fueled rise of remote work and two years of spiking interest rates have dramatically depressed property values, leaving office landlords in a jam if they need to pay off maturing debt.
Other notable office properties mired in foreclosure in the central business district include the Civic Opera Building and 20 N. Wacker Drive, 70 W. Madison St., 161 N. Clark St. and 111 W. Jackson...