Tom’s Recommended Reading for the Week

Check out the top Chicago commercial real estate news before heading into the weekend!

1. Apollo buys Kemper Lakes office complex outside Chicago – A New York-based investment manager paid $127 million for the Kemper Lakes Business Center, after a previous deal for the Long Grove office campus fell apart. Apollo Global Management, which oversees about $164 billion in assets, completed the deal Nov. 12, according to Lake County property records. An Apollo fund bought the four-building property from Equus Capital Partners, according to people familiar with the deal. Apollo stepped in to fill the void left after insurer MetLife walked away from a $130 million deal for the 1.1 million-square-foot complex earlier this year… Crain’s Chicago
   
2. AT&T Building in downtown Chicago for sale by Kushner – The owner of a 30-story West Loop office tower leased to AT&T is ready to cash in on investors’ continued interest in the 312 area code. New York-based Kushner Cos. hired the Chicago office of HFF to seek a sale of 225 W. Randolph St., which it bought for about $275.7 million in late 2007. In a somewhat unusual move, the AT&T Building is being offered for a specific price… Crain’s Chicago
   
3. Chicago-area commercial construction contracts up – New commercial real estate projects are powering the local construction industry, a welcome change for contractors who wondered five years ago if they’d ever bid on an office tower or shopping center again. Contracts for commercial and residential construction projects in the Chicago area totaled $8.6 billion over the first 10 months of the year, up 16.3 percent from a year earlier, according to Dodge Data & Analytics, a data provider formerly known as McGraw-Hill Construction… Crain’s Chicago
   
4. Mizrachi plans 41-story office and hotel tower in Chicago’s West Loop – Jumping into an already competitive field of downtown office developments, a West Loop landlord unveiled plans for a 41-story tower that would include a four-star hotel topped by office space. Joseph Mizrachi, who led a group of investors that bought the 1.1 million-square-foot office tower at 540 W. Madison St. in December 2012, heads a venture to develop land on the west side of the 23-story building. The site was part of the $350 million acquisition… Crain’s Chicago
5. Study Reignites Debate About Broker Interests – A new study by George Washington University’s Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis has rekindled the debate over whether there are conflicts of interest at some of the country’s largest commercial real estate brokerages. Brokers who represent only office tenants have argued for years that conflicts exist at firms that represent both landlords and tenants—and that their tenant clients often suffer as a result… Wall Street Journal