Meet The Saint Grand: Luxury Living Chicago Realty’s First JV

Development Team Secures Financing, Starts Construction, and Announces Name

A co-development and joint venture between Mavrek Development, GW Properties, Luxury Living Chicago Realty, and Double Eagle Development has closed on $102.2 million construction financing with MSD Partners.

JLL worked on behalf of the borrower, Mavrek Development, GW Properties, Luxury Living Chicago Realty and Double Eagle Development, to secure the four-year loan through MSD Partners, L.P.

The JLL Capital Markets Debt Advisory team representing the borrower was led by Senior Director Chris Knight.

“We are excited to get this project financed and begin construction,” said Adam Friedberg, Partner at Mavrek Development. “Mavrek Development is excited to continue our growth as one of the most active development groups in Chicago”

In addition, the team has announced the name of the property as The Saint Grand.

Designed by NORR, the 21-story property includes 248 Class A luxury apartments, 40,000 square feet of office, and 8,000 square feet of street-level retail on the northeast corner of E Grand Avenue and N St Clair.

The apartments are located at 218 E. Grand Ave., steps from Michigan Avenue shopping, dining and entertainment and walking distance to Lake Michigan and Northwestern Hospital campus.

The development will feature a mix of floorplans ranging from studios to 2 Bedrooms with an emphasis on in-unit workspaces and private outdoor space to accommodate post-pandemic renter preferences. There will also be a suite of amenities including an innovative package receiving service offering, state-of-the-art co-working lounge, specialized fitness center and outdoor pool and deck.

“After an exceptionally strong residential leasing season, we have even greater confidence in the ultimate success for The Saint Grand,” said Aaron Galvin CEO/Founder of Luxury Living Chicago Realty. “As a co-developer, we are using the rental trends we are seeing in the market to inform the architecture, design, and operations of this property. We have every confidence this property will be well received in the market.”

In addition to the multifamily offering, the property will include Class-A office space with a rare flagship opportunity located at 535 N. St Clair. This is the first Class-A office delivery in Streeterville in several years. The two full floors of office space also include private outdoor space, modern ventilation systems and other intentional post-pandemic health safety elements. Office tenants will be able to enjoy the apartment amenities as an added benefit.

“We’re seeing a flight to quality in the office market in Chicago,” stated Anthony Hrusovsky, Partner at Mavrek. “Companies are using new space and residential level amenity offerings to attract their employees back to the office.”

“The Offices at The Saint Grand will be the first of its kind in the Streeterville submarket, which we think will result in strong tenant demand,” added Shai Wolkowicki, Principal of GW Properties.

The property will replace a parking garage located at 535 N St Clair. Demolition is underway and groundbreaking is anticipated by the end of the year. The office will be ready for tenant build outs to start Q3 2023, with the residential delivering in early 2024.

“This development is the culmination of many hours of hard work and team collaboration,” said Peter Koch, Partner at Mavrek. “We are excited to start going vertical.”

See additional renderings and press coverage at:

Luxury Living Chicago Realty Announces First Development Project in JV Partnership with Mavrek Development and GW Properties

A co-development and joint venture between Mavrek DevelopmentGW Properties, and Luxury Living Chicago Realty announce plans for a mixed-use development in the heart of Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood. Designed by NORR, the property includes 248 Class A luxury apartments, 40,000 square feet of office, and 8,000 square of street-level retail on the northeast corner of E Grand Avenue and N St Clair.

 

The apartments are located at 218 E. Grand Ave., steps from Michigan Avenue shopping, dining and entertainment and walking distance to Lake Michigan and the Northwestern Hospital campus.

 

“We are excited to continue to develop and invest in Chicago,” said Adam Friedberg, Partner at Mavrek Development. “We’ve assembled a best-in-class team, and we are thrilled to have secured the opportunity to add to Streeterville’s skyline and ecosystem. With a Whole Foods steps from the development site and easy access to Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, this is a prime location well suited for retail, office and multifamily.”

 

The development will feature a mix of floorplans ranging from studios to 2 Bedrooms with an emphasis on in-unit workspaces and private outdoor space to accommodate post-pandemic renter preferences. There will also be a suite of amenities, including an innovative package receiving service offering, state-of-the-art co-working lounge, specialized fitness center and outdoor pool and deck.

 

“We have seen a shift in renter demand asking for more 1 Bedroom + den spaces and paying premiums for units with private outdoor space,” said Aaron Galvin, CEO/Founder of Luxury Living Chicago Realty. “As a co-developer, we can use the rental trends we are seeing in the market to inform the architecture, design, and operations of this property. We have every confidence this property will be well received in the market.”

 

In addition to the multifamily offering, the property will include Class-A office space with a rare flagship opportunity located at 535 N. St Clair. This is the first Class-A office delivery in Streeterville in several years. The two full floors of office space also include private outdoor space, modern ventilation systems and other intentional post-pandemic health safety elements. Office tenants will be able to enjoy the apartment amenities as an added benefit.

 

“We’re seeing a flight to quality in the office market in Chicago,” stated Anthony Hrusovsky, Partner at Mavrek.  “Companies are using new space and residential level amenity offerings to attract their employees back to the office.

“535 St Clair will be the first of its kind in the Streeterville submarket, which we think will result in strong tenant demand,” added Shai Wolkowicki, Principal of GW Properties.

 

The property will replace a parking garage located at 535 N St Clair. Demolition is expected to start mid-summer with groundbreaking by the end of the year. The office will be ready for tenant build outs to start Q3 2023, with the residential delivering in early 2024.

 

“This development is the culmination of many hours of hard work and team collaboration,” said Peter Koch, Partner at Mavrek. “The project is slated to begin construction in the Fall, and we are eager to get going.”

 

Stay tuned for more news about this project and future LLCR developments.

Luxury Living Chicago Realty Named A Finalist in Two Categories for PR Daily’s 2021 Content Marketing Awards

For the third consecutive year, Luxury Living Chicago has been named a finalist in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards, this year placing in two categories. The first category, Content Marketing for the Purpose of Lead Generation, we highlighted our “Consistency as a Key Strategy for Inbound Content Marketing.” and is the third consecutive year we placed as a finalist. The second category we were nominated for is PR Daily’s Thought Leadership Campaign, where we discussed “Providing Clarity in Uncertain Times”.

 

Submission requirements for PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards included details about our goals, strategy and tactics, execution, and evaluation in terms of success, results or ROI. A summary of what we included in our submission is as follows.

 

Lead Generation – Consistency as a Key Strategy for Inbound Content Marketing

 

Consistent content creation is an essential part of our inbound marketing strategy to build lead generation, which is rooted in three key principles: attracting, engaging, and delighting customers. Along with other success metrics, excellence in these key areas accounts for a significant increase in new leads.

 

The Luxury Living Chicago Realty site was built to be a resource for anyone looking for an apartment in downtown Chicago. Every week at least three new blog posts are published and shared throughout marketing channels that link back to the website.

 

Every month our team reviews a list of SERP opportunities, meets with our sales teams to discuss commonly asked questions, and analyzes the top performing content driving traffic to our website.By the end of the award timeframe, the LLCR site ranked  in the top 2 Google search results for 288 queries, a number that has continued to increase month over month since the website’s creation in 2016.  

 

Thought Leadership Campaign – Providing Clarity in Uncertain Times

 

As part of our submission for the Thought Leadership Campaign, Luxury Living Chicago Realty made numerous updates to the LuxuryChicagoApartments.com website that enabled us to address COVID-19 concerns and strategically shift to virtual leasing.

 

Thought leadership was deployed to generate bylined articles and secure media interviews about how LLCR was continuing to operate safely during the pandemic and to share best practices and key learnings with the real estate industry. From Chicago Agent Magazine to Bisnow to The Real Deal’s, CEO Aaron Galvin worked closely with Chicago’s real estate media and multifamily trade publications to share important data and metrics about Chicago’s luxury apartment market as well as best practices related to marketing and leasing apartments during a pandemic.

 

Galvin published multiple articles featuring real-time insight and learnings via the Forbes Real Estate Council and Inman.com. In April, How To Lease An Apartment Sight Unseen and How To Improve Remote Leasing Efforts With Video ran with the goal of sharing strategies that had been working for the company. In May, he shared additional insight in the article How To Convert Apartment Website Traffic To Leases, followed by his July submission Apartment Leasing Has Changed For The Better: How To Succeed With Multiple Leasing Options.

 

On March 3, 2021, Aaron Galvin hosted the Chicago Luxury Apartment Market Update. Months in the making, the goal of the virtual event was to share company data and key learnings from the past year. The event featured a keynote from Galvin, a market report from the company’s Director of Leasing strategy, a candid interview between a luxury renter that moved during the pandemic and her leasing agent and culminated to a panel discussion with some of the biggest names in Chicago real estate. The panel discussion was moderated by Galvin and featured key figures from Hines, Fifield and Related. The virtual event was attended by 300+ industry peers from developers to property managers to investors.

 

 

Being recognized as an organization that is included with a group of notable names in business is both an accomplishment and an honor. All winners for PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards will be announced in January 2022.

 

If you would like to learn more about Luxury Living Chicago Realty’s multifamily marketing services, please sign up for our newsletter below. We share recent thought leadership articles, case studies, multifamily data and more in our newsletter.

Chicago Luxury Apartment Market Update: COVID & Beyond

Chicago is an attractive, liveable, centrally-located city offering visitors and tourists alike the experience of world-class dining, entertainment and shopping. While the luxury rental market itself is rebounding from the initial uncertainty around COVID-19, we saw firsthand the impacts of the pandemic on residents and properties. 

With 3,000 apartments in our leasing portfolio, Luxury Living Chicago Realty (LLCR) is an authority on marketing and leasing luxury properties in the Chicagoland area. Some of our notable exclusive leasing assignments include Wolf Point East, Wolf Point West, Logan, Panorama, River City Apartments, Norweta and One Oak Brook Commons.

While there was a narrative of urban flight during the pandemic, the concern was unfounded. During the pandemic, the majority of people who left the city were older millennials at the end of their rental cycle. They moved out of state or to the suburbs at an accelerated pace, catalyzed by the pandemic. Chicago’s new luxury renters are slightly younger and will likely continue to be renters for the next 5-7 years. These renters are willing to pay more for space and amenities as they are working from home and spending more time in their units and on-site. Gen Z is a population we’re watching closely to understand what resonates with them. These consumers were born between 1997 and 2021. So far, we know they are eco-conscious and community-driven.

 

Relocation Renters

During the pandemic, we saw the greatest rental impact from new renters relocating to downtown Chicago.  Relocations accounted for about 40% of LLCR leases pre-covid. Relocations include new renters moving to Chicago from out of state or the suburbs. That number did not change during COVID, but what did shift was the composition of those relocation renters. Pre-COVID, the majority of relocation renters came from out of state. At the end of 2020, the majority of relocation renters came from the suburbs (25% of the 40%). In 2021, the number of relocation renters increased to 50% of all new leases with 35% of the 50% coming from out of state. The top five states where renters are coming from are Texas, California, New York, Ohio and Michigan. These states did not change during the pandemic or in 2021. When reviewing data on current renters up for renewal in 2020, there was a 10% increase in that universe of renters citing “leaving the city” as their reason for not renewing a lease. In 2021, the number of current renters leaving the city has returned to normal levels.

 

Pricing/Concessions

Downtown Chicago apartment rents dropped significantly in Q3-Q4 2020. Net effective rent prices decreased as much as 25% in some luxury apartment buildings from a similar period 12 month prior. However, with price decreases came a significant influx of renters who were able to secure extraordinary deals. As the market has recovered, pricing is now HIGHER than pre-pancemic levels and occupancy is at an all time high of 95%+ in most downtown luxury apartment buildings. We expect prices to continue to increase significantly for the next two years. 

 

Pipeline

There are about 30,000 luxury apartment units in Chicago, and 25,000 of those units have been delivered in the last eight years. For the period of 2013-2020, there were an average of 3,500 new luxury units delivered annually. 

 

  • In 2022, there are only 650 new Class A units being delivered. 
  • In 2023, we project 2,200 units. There will not be enough units to meet demand. In turn, occupancy will remain and historically high levels and rents will continue to rise. 
  • By the middle of 2024, we will see significant multifamily deliveries, with most deliveries in the Fulton Market/West Loop area.

 

All of us in the luxury rental industry are closely watching the market as it continues to improve post-COVID. 

 

For more information or questions about Chicago’s Class A multifamily market, get in touch with our team today and be sure to sign up to receive industry insights.

Luxury Living Chicago Realty Named to 2021 Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies

Luxury Living Chicago Realty (LLCR), led by CEO Aaron Galvin, is excited to announce its formal recognition as one of the most successful companies in the country.

This year our brokerage received the Inc. 5000 award based on our 2020 growth. This accomplishment means that we qualified as one of the top 5000 fastest-growing private companies in America!

We are also proud to share that this is our SIXTH time on the list.

From 2019 through 2020, we experienced tremendous growth in both business and personnel. We are #236 in the Midwest and #2805 in the nation of the fastest-growing privately-held companies.

Last year, we ranked #4052. We’re grateful for everyone’s continued investment in our success.

We want to congratulate and thank all of our team members, clients, and business partners who have made this achievement possible.

The Inc. 5000 List

The Inc. 5000 list is a ranking of private companies with the most proven track records.

The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment— its independent small and midsized businesses.

Companies such as Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees of the Inc. 5000. The 2021 Inc. 5000 is the most competitive crop in the list’s history.

What this Placement Means for LLCR

Luxury Living Chicago Realty’s ranking on this year’s Inc. 5000 is another incredible milestone for our Chicago-based brokerage and honors our company’s entrepreneurial achievement.

The recognition helps increase our brokerage’s exposure and puts us in the national and global spotlight.

While our team is honored to make this distinguished list for yet another year, we are continually striving to grow and strengthen our company.

2020 may have been the most unexpected years yet, for our company, as well as many others.

Despite the pandemic’s challenges, our team quickly and efficiently found innovative ways to proceed serving our clients.

Thanks to technology and our team’s rapid response to COVID-19, we managed to find safe ways for our clients to make their home buying dreams a reality, even during heightened precautions and social distancing.

As we continue to navigate these uncharted waters, we are continually seeking ways to keep our clients safe and streamline the house-buying and selling process.

If you are searching for a rental or sales property, don’t hesitate to reach out to our experienced team today!

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