“A stately Gold Coast building that has been largely unoccupied since the 1990s, puzzling neighbors and passersby, has been sold to a development firm that plans to finish its condo spaces and put them on the market. Altitude Capital Partners paid $10 million for the four-story building at 1447 N. Dearborn St., Brian Dohmen, managing partner of Chicago-based Altitude, confirmed.
“It’s the first step toward a new life for the much-talked-about phantom building of the Gold Coast.
“The brick and limestone horseshoe-shaped building has been mostly empty for the entire 21st century and probably as far back as 1990, Crain’s reported in January 2023. While longtime disuse is not unheard of in struggling neighborhoods, this building’s decades-long vacancy stands out because of the location in a thriving, high-end neighborhood.
“Dohmen is a Gold Coast resident who said that like others in the neighborhood, “I walked my dog past it many times” and wondered about the situation. Unlike most neighbors, Dohmen is in real estate development, so when the property went on the market in the fall, he says, ‘I wanted to own it. It’s the best location for new condo inventory in the Gold Coast.’
“‘The gorgeousness of the exterior, the brick and limestone,’ is all well cared for, O’Malley said. Built sometime before 1925, it was originally a 50-room long-term-stay hotel called Dearborn Manor, a name that lasted at least until the late 1950s, according to archived Chicago Tribune rental ads.
“The closest Crain’s has been able to get to a rationale for the building sitting empty so long came in an email from an architect who previously did design work for Brown. After the initial story on the phantom building appeared, Kristin Fogarty-Yi told Crain’s, ‘It is not more complicated than the owner loves the building and has taken their time with the design, as well as they change their mind or get busy with other projects they are working on.’ (Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 3/19/25)