Chicago CRE pros wine, dine and revel deals at food fundraiser

 The commercial real estate industry’s rough back half of 2022 didn’t stop Chicago’s professionals from finding deals to celebrate.

A crowd of about 1,600 that included the city’s top brokers, developers and investors got together Thursday at the 35th Annual Commercial Real Estate Awards at the South Loop Hilton Chicago. As they mingled and bid on bottles of wine before cramming into the awards dinner, they raised $1.25 million for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Noting it was a challenging time for fundraising, event chairman Andy Christensen, principal at Partners By Design, said the industry still stepped up this year.

“We’ve got developers, we’ve got real estate professionals. We’ve got builders, architects, designers, engineers, furniture manufacturers. There’s even attorneys here in the room tonight,” Christensen said. “Who says networking and drinking are non-billable hours?”

A live jazz band kept up the energy by playing covers of pop and rock songs as awardees took to the stage.

The event honored Capri Capital chair Quintin Primo with its Game Changer Award for his work in underserved neighborhoods, including providing permanent supportive housing on Chicago’s South and West sides.

Primo, along with collaborator Michael Reschke, also nabbed the title of deal of the year with their joint venture’s Thompson Center redevelopment play and the property’s $105 million sale to Google, which plans to occupy the entire former longtime home of state government in the Loop.

DL3 Realty’s Leon Walker, who presented Primo’s award, said he hoped the Google deal would “signal a Renaissance” for the city’s central business district.

“Now that’s what game-changers do,” he said.

Christensen said the award nominations are indicative of the marketplace, and stood for the top deals of 2022. Finalists also included Boston Consulting Group anchoring Sterling Bay’s Fulton Market office building with an 200,000-square-foot lease in move from a River North tower, and the $232 million suburban Allstate Campus sale.

“There were some really big deals that were done in 2022. The floodgates opened probably somewhere in 2021 and going from 2021 to 2022 there was a lot of action,” he said.

Guests who bought tickets to the afterparty headed west to the Fora restaurant at the Onni Group-owned Emily Hotel in Fulton Market.