Strategic Properties hits skids on another Loop condo deconversion

Yitzy Klor’s outfit faces calls to pick up pace on $96M buyout

Chicago’s biggest condo deconversion buyer is coming under pressure from would-be sellers to act faster on the latest deal to drag on as the market slides.

After failing to close a $190 million deal to buy a 467-unit River North tower in a bulk condo buyout earlier this year, Strategic Properties of North America is now upsetting condo owners at a different property in the Loop. A critical mass of owners of the 310-unit property at 200 North Dearborn Street who approved a $95 million deal with Strategic Properties more than a year ago are getting restless as the sale remains pending amid soaring interest rates and a general market slowdown.

“These buyers went from being sophisticated deconversion specialists to complete jokes,” said Jon Taylor, the owner of a penthouse unit at 200 North Dearborn who’s fed up with the deal. “They still haven’t been able to secure funding, despite it being 15 months now.”

Strategic — which is led by principals Yitzy Klor and Saul Kupperwasser and has offices in Skokie and Lakewood, New Jersey — didn’t respond to requests for comment, and neither did an attorney representing the men and the firm.

At 10 East Ontario Place in River North, the condo association’s board of directors this summer killed the $190 million deal it made to sell the 467 condos in bulk. The move came after years of negotiating and waiting on Strategic, which couldn’t come up with the money to close the transaction before the sellers’ condo board pulled the plug. 

Now some unit owners at 200 North Dearborn are pushing their condo board to take similar action.

“If you want an option in a stock market, you have to pay for that, and here [Strategic] is basically getting more time for free,” said Brent Junge, whose son owns a unit at 200 North Dearborn. “I’d love to be able to tie up all kinds of property or stocks with the right to buy at its current price at any time in the next 10 years. I’d love to be able to get an option for free.”

Junge and his son have opposed the deal from the outset, as the son wants to keep living in the unit. 

Other sellers on North Dearborn have indicated they want the condo board members to force Strategic to meet tougher obligations — such as putting up additional nonrefundable earnest money — in o