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Children’s Memorial Hospital has hired Chicago-based commercial real estate firm U.S. Equities Realty to market the land and building at its current tony Lincoln Park location.

Calling it “one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the Midwest,” hospital officials are hoping the prime six-acre real estate site will fetch a large sum.

Hospital officials would not disclose or speculate on what the sale of the property may raise but it is certainly worth tens of millions of dollars even in the current down market for real estate, say Chicago real estate observers.

Children’s is scheduled to relocate to a new $915 million hospital in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood east of Michigan Avenue in 2012. While the hospital has raised $500 million of its $600 million philanthropic goal toward the new hospital’s construction, it still needs the real estate sale to help finance the balance of the project. More…

(Crain’s) — A development venture backed by the General Electric Corp. pension fund obtained a $170-million loan from a Japanese bank for a high-end condominium project overlooking Lincoln Park, the first major condo construction loan in Chicago since the credit crunch began nearly two years ago.

Ricker-Murphy Development LLC said a group of lenders led by the Americas division of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. closed Friday on the loan for Lincoln Park 2520, a three-building condo project on the site of the demolished Columbus Hospital, 2520 N. Lakeview Ave.

www.lincolnpark2520.com

The loan is the largest construction financing for a Chicago condo project since spring 2008, when a German bank issued a $137.5-million loan for the Ritz-Carlton Residences development on North Michigan Avenue.

As a result of the financing, the development venture is increasing the number of units to 229 condos, after slashing the number of proposed units last year by about one-third, to 198 condos, amid the widespread downturn in the market, the developers say.

But the loan isn’t a sign that financing for new projects, which has all but dried up, will start flowing again.

“The stars had to align,” says developer Harry Huzenis, a principal in Chicago-based Jameson Development LLC, which isn’t involved with the project. “Loans of that size for residential developments are pretty scarce. You have to shop the world.”

The financing comes as sales of new condos in the city have improved this year compared to last year’s dreary pace, but still remain far below the peak of 2005.

Related story: Downtown condo sales lag as tax credits end

Yet Lincoln Park 2520 has advantages other projects cannot offer, including a prime location and an equity partner in GE with deep pockets, Mr. Huzenis notes.

The Ricker-Murphy/GE joint venture announced the project in 2006 but didn’t start construction until last year, when the venture started work without the loan on the foundation, which is now completed.

Jerry Karr, senior managing director of GE Asset Management, which advised the pension fund, declined to say how much equity the pension trust has invested in the development, which is expected to cost between $350 million and $400 million.

Amid the recession and delays in starting construction, prospective buyers walked away from contracts totaling about $136 million, with $84 million in pending sales still in place, Mr. Karr says.

“We struggled like everyone else, but we managed to do it (the construction loan),” says Peter Ricker, who along with John Murphy is co-principal of Chicago-based Ricker-Murphy. Mr. Ricker is also chairman and CEO of commercial real estate brokerage MB Real Estate Services LLC.

Related story: Proposed Lincoln Park condo project scaled down

Now, about 30% of the 229 units are under contract, the developers say. The first units are expected to be delivered in early 2012, with the project’s completion that summer.

The Sumitomo loan was arranged by Chicago-based Draper & Kramer Inc.

The last major loan for a new condo project in Chicago was issued in spring 2008, when the German bank known as Helaba lent $137.5 million for the 40-story Ritz-Carlton project, 664 N. Michigan Ave.

View Reader’s Disscussion At Crains Online

By: Eddie Baeb July 19, 2010 | Crain’s

A bid to convert a former lamp factory into the nation’s biggest showcase for environmentally friendly businesses may be salvaged by a not-so-green tenant: a freight brokerage firm.

Developers of the project, dubbed the Green Exchange, are in discussions with Coyote Logistics LLC about moving its headquarters and operation from Lake Forest to the four-story building on the Northwest Side in a deal that would involve more city subsidies for the $54-million project.

Fast-growing Coyote, which has more than 100 employees locally and 340 nationwide, would lease between 18% and 31% of the 227,450 square feet of available space at the Green Exchange, sources say.  More…

The converted 19th-century church that was once home to the R&B musician R. Kelly will be put up for sale on June 7th. Extensively renovated in the past 18 months, the place is now a four-bedroom home with a marble-clad fireplace in the living room, a sleek kitchen, a 1,500-square-foot rooftop terrace with an outdoor kitchen, and an elevator. Priced at $3.89 million, the Lake View home will be listed by Ed Jelinek and Shawn Daly of Coldwell Banker.

The red brick structure has changed hands several times since 2002, when Kelly sold it for $2.5 million to a couple who never moved in. According to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, it was sold again in 2005, this time for $2.4 million; in 2006 it was sold for $3 million to a buyer who later lost both this house and a Lincoln Park mansion to foreclosure. In November 2008, Ilene Greenblatt bought the property from the foreclosing lender for $1 million; it had no power and was in “terrible condition,” says Tim Mathias, Greenblatt’s project manager and designer for the latest round of renovations. Read full story with Photos at Chicago Magazine Online…

Related 2009 Story:  “You don’t turn down an invitation to R. Kelly’s house”

Associated Press | A rush of homebuyers aiming to meet a deadline to qualify for a federal tax credit pushed the number of signed sales contracts to the highest level since October.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes rose 6 percent in April from a month earlier to a reading of 110.9. March’s reading was revised upward to 104.6.

The rise marked the third consecutive month of increases, all of them aided by federal tax credits of up to $8,000.

But the tax credits expired on April 30. Many analysts expect sales to drop in the coming months.

Even though mortgage rates are near record lows and home prices have declined dramatically, potential buyers are unlikely to act if they don’t have jobs or fear that their jobs are in jeopardy.

“Clearly, the race to meet the tax credit deadline has left the home-buying pipeline rather empty, and we fear that still high unemployment, heavy indebtedness and tight credit will mean that it stays that way,” wrote Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics.

Evidence of a slowing market was apparent Wednesday when the Mortgage Bankers Association released a weekly report on applications to purchase homes. Applications fell for the fourth-straight week to the lowest level since April 1997. Plus, foreclosures are still at extraordinary levels, which is likely to push down home prices in the second half of the year.

Investors, however, seemed pleased with the April rise in pending home sales. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 60 points in early trading.

Some analysts are less fearful than others. Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote that he expects “a gentle recovery once the plunge following the end of the tax credit is over.”

The Realtors index provides an early measurement of sales activity because there is usually a one- to two- month lag between a sales contract and a completed deal. A reading of 100 is equal to the average level of sales activity in 2001, when the index started.

Congress included a temporary tax credit to boost home sales in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law a month after President Barack Obama took office. The idea was to bring the housing market back to life. Lawmakers, after intense lobbying from the real estate industry, agreed last fall to extend it and expand it to more buyers.

First-time buyers were eligible for a tax credit of up to $8,000. Current owners who bought and moved into another home could qualify for a credit of up to $6,500. To qualify, buyers had to have a signed sales contract by April 30 and must close the sale by the end of this month.

About 2.6 million households had used the credit as of late April at a cost of $18.7 billion, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The biggest boost for pending sales was in the Northeast, where sales rose nearly 30 percent. Sales were up 7.5 percent in the West and about 4 percent in the Midwest. They fell 0.6 percent in the South.

Retired Chicago Bears safety Shaun Gayle has sold his three-bedroom town home in Bucktown for $700,000.

With the Bears from 1984 until 1994, including the Super Bowl-winning 1985-1986 season, Gayle retired from the NFL in 1996. Gayle, 48, who bought the 1,660-square-foot Bucktown town home in 1997 for $390,000, sold it while it was off the market. He had listed it in July for $725,000 and took it off the market in November.

The nine-room town home has 3 1/2 baths, two wood-burning fireplaces, hardwood floors, cathedral ceilings, skylights, an open staircase, a steam shower in the master suite, granite counters, stainless-steel appliances, a large roof deck and a three-car garage. The sale closed March 31.

Gayle declined to comment on the transaction.