NEW YORK (Reuters) - Luxury hotel and resort developer Donald Trump sued Deutsche Bank and several other banks on Monday, demanding $3 billion in damages, claiming they broke agreements in the construction and financing of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. The unfinished 92-story complex that would be the second-tallest building in the United States behind Chicago's Sears Tower was due for completion in mid-2009. Trump has been trying to extend a $640 million construction credit from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank, The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday. They include a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co, Union Labor Life Insurance Co, real-estate investment trust iStar Financial Inc, and a division of Highland Capital Management LP.
The residents this week sent a letter to 427 Realtors, notifying them of what they consider to be the "intrusive" activities of the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors in hopes that individual Realtors would apply pressure to the group and curtail its involvement at the local level, said Ed Burkhardt, a former Kenilworth trustee who helped organize the letter-writing campaign. "We'd like to know whether individual Realtors are actually behind this effort or whether their trade group is simply running amok," he said. "I happen to think it's the latter." Howard Handler, North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors government affairs director, said Realtors have a long history of advocating for private property rights, and his group's involvement in local issues has been driven by its 4,500 members. The residents' letter will make no difference, he said.
I thought all my commercial real estate friends in Ann Arbor and elsewhere would enjoy this. While I was in Chicago last weekend, I snapped a photo of this sign outside of Sears Tower, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere - a structure that houses 3.8 million square feet of office space. Rest assured, local landlords, vacancy rates aren't just a problem in Michigan.
Despite a real estate market severely restricted by financial fears, John Buck Co. has agreed to buy a Deerfield office complex for about $169 million, say people familiar with the transaction. Such megadeals have become rare as the credit crisis and worry about the future of commercial real estate have slowed sales. So far this year, just nine such sales valued at $100 million or more have closed. That's down from 21 deals recorded at this time a year ago in greater Chicago, according to Real Capital Analytics, a research firm. Chicago's biggest deal this year was the $540 million sale of the 50-story UBS tower at 1 N. Wacker Drive disclosed in February.
