I'm not dead yet....


This is exciting for people who live and work in the River West area, and is personally good for me given where my Chicago office is. U.S. Equities has obtained Phase 1 financing from Eurohypo for the long-awaited Metra Market project. The press release says they have $25 million in financing plus TIF money to boot. I'm excited to see the project get off the ground because I honestly thought it might be dead. Congrats! Apparently three anchors, including a French market and a CVS, are on board. I think this bodes well for my work neighborhood, and I look forward to seeing construction begin.

When you think about it, the legal issues alone can make a project like this daunting. You have air and structural maintenance rights from the UP to deal with, probably a ton of other crazy title issues to work through with the lender, and on top of all that the fun that is TIF financing. I can see why they went to Eurohypo. I've done one or two deals with them and they are smart. Tough, too, but not unfair. I don't know what, if anything, the choice of lender or legal issues had with getting the deal done, but hey, it isn't my deal so I can speculate!

Courtesy of Crain's.

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