“Real estate firm Golub is seeking a buyer for a River North development site several years after a deal to sell it to a New York developer blew up amid a complex and ongoing legal drama.

“The Chicago developer has hired Jones Lang LaSalle to market the seven-story property at 50 E. Superior St. for sale, according to a flyer. The mid-block building along the north side of Superior between Rush Street and Wabash Avenue is a vacant, 113,300-square-foot office building that JLL is framing as a candidate to be razed and redeveloped with something far larger.

“There is no asking price listed for the building, which was a key piece of a 2017 proposal from New York developer Symmetry Property Development for a 60-story condominium-hotel tower. Golub at the time had a $25 million deal in place to sell the building to Symmetry, which aimed to develop the skyscraper by demolishing the Golub building and smaller, historically significant buildings next to it at the northeast corner of Wabash and Superior.

“That proposal — at the time the tallest proposed high-rise in River North since the Great Recession — was rejected by 42nd Ward Ald. Brendan Reilly and ultimately led to a series of lawsuits involving foreign investors that had poured nearly $50 million into the project. Golub’s role in the matter was effectively resolved in 2019, when a Cook County judge ruled that Symmetry had defaulted on its deal to buy the Superior Street building from Golub and that the Chicago developer was entitled to collect a down payment Symmetry had made, court records show.

“The property is also no longer in Reilly’s territory. The city’s redrawn ward map put the site in the 2nd Ward, where it is under the purview of Ald. Brian Hopkins. It’s unclear how that may impact the type or scale of development that could win community or aldermanic support on the property, and Hopkins did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

“Marketing materials also say a buyer could control air rights above the Giordano’s restaurant property that Golub owns on the eastern portion of the site, which would help preserve views from a new tower.” (Ecker, Crain’s Chicago Business, 10/28/24)

Read the full story at Crain’s Chicago Business

• River North development site back up for grabs after failed skyscraper plan, Danny Ecker, Crain’s Chicago Business, 10/28/24
• 50 E. Superior Street Listing JLL