Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently joined Lagfin and R2 Companies to break ground on 79 West Monroe, a $64 million redevelopment of the upper floors of the building into an office-to-residential conversion.
The project will transform the historic Rector Building, the oldest surviving commercial high-rise designed by architect Jarvis Hunt, into a residential space, addressing the growing demand for housing in the Loop.
Lagfin, as Campari’s holding company, has made significant investments in Chicago-based projects. The renovation will add 117 new apartments to the Loop, offering a mix of market-rate and affordable housing.
“Chicago has a long history of pioneering innovative architecture projects, and we have repeatedly demonstrated our ability to overcome challenges by reimagining our city for the future,” said Mayor Johnson. The Chicago City Council approved $28 million in TIF funding for the conversion project.
The R2 platform is designed to programmatically manage the real estate investment process from end-to-end: R2 casts a wide net to originate and underwrite the very best investment opportunities, act decisively when an attractive risk-adjusted investment presents itself, and execute a disciplined plan to create sustainable value. R2 is an opportunistic firm that invests its own capital alongside a select group of institutional partners, making it an active and highly vested manager and operator. R2 currently owns and operates more than 6 million square feet of commercial real estate in Chicago, Austin, Nashville, Minneapolis & Milwaukee and has a multi-year track record of realizing superior risk-adjusted returns utilizing various investment strategies across market cycles. The R2 platform is designed to be nimble, able to quickly and deftly shift strategies and allocations in response to changing market conditions. The R2 team is a group of knowledgeable and motivated principals with experience in acquisitions, capital markets, development, leasing, and asset, property, and construction management. With this array of core competencies, R2 can directly control the success variables in any given investment.
