“A Chicago loft office building with ties to architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and actress Mary Tyler Moore has been sold to a local investor that plans to convert the Streeterville structure into apartments.

“Horizon Realty Group plans to convert the seven-story Pelouze Building at 230 E. Ohio St. into 72 apartments, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Michael told CoStar News.

“I’m excited that we can take a building that was distressed and facing abandonment and see if it can become an example for revitalizing some of these older buildings that were facing death sentences,” Michael said.

“I’ve always been attracted to an adaptive reuse project, and I’ve lost on a couple other deals,” Michael said. “I was just waiting for a deal where the numbers made sense. Here, you have the opportunity to buy at a very low basis and create something while avoiding the high costs of a ground-up development.”

“‘What’s driving the trend is that demand for office space has plummeted, and my personal feeling is that we need to do more to incentivize and make it easier for developers to convert these buildings,’ Michael said. ‘We’re dealing with a housing crisis, not to mention how many of these buildings are going to be handed back to their lenders. We’ve got to be a lot more aggressive about creating a path for these buildings to be converted to something else.

“Built in 1917, the Pelouze Building was designed by architect Alfred Alschuler. It is named for William Nelson Pelouze, whose scale-making company used the building for offices and storage, according to historical accounts.

“The building later served as the longtime office of German-born, Chicago-based architect Mies van der Rohe and as the backdrop for a 1980s Moore television series called ‘Mary,’ according to Chicago Tribune reports. The building’s exterior was used as the backdrop to the series, serving as home to the fictional newspaper for which Moore’s character wrote a column in the TV show.” (Ori, CoStar News, 9/24/24)

“Horizon’s Streeterville property is known as the Pelouze Building and served as the former offices of the Pelouze Scale & Manufacturing Co. It was built next door to the old scale-making company’s factory that at one time housed the offices of Playboy magazine.

“It’s the real estate firm’s first office-to-residential conversion project. Horizon’s ‘bread and butter’ is taking old hotels, gutting them and returning them to market as apartments, Michael said.”(Miller, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/12/24)

Read the full story at CoStar News and the Chicago Sun-Times

• Chicago building with ties to Mies van der Rohe and Mary Tyler Moore expands office-to-apartments trend; Horizon Realty Group plans to convert seven-story Pelouze Building into 72 apartments, Ryan Ori, CoStar News, 9/24/24
• Streeterville office building transforming into apartments, with plans for rooftop pickleball courts; Horizon Realty Group will create 72 loft-style apartments for its first office-to-residential conversion, Abby Miller, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/12/24