Thor Equities Plans 20 Story Fulton Market Office Building

Thor Equities plans to put a 20 story glass and steel office building on a full city block at the doorstep to the Fulton Market District per Crain's Chicago Business.  

The New York investor has shared a proposal with West Loop neighborhood groups for a 400,000 square foot building taking up an entire block bounded by Fulton, Green, Halsted and Wayman Streets. 

The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed building would include about 350,000 square feet of offices. The remainder 50,000 square feet would be used for retail that would feature a restaurant owned by country music group Rascal Flatts. 

Thor still needs to win approval for the project from neighborhood groups and 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett to construct this building that would tower over the fast changing Fulton Market and add another big piece of inventory to it's downtown office market.

It is still possible that plans could change but as of now, the building would be a little bit taller than the 19 story office building Sterling Bay is constructing at 333 N. Green St., immediately north of Thor's site.

Thor recently paid $8.1 million for the property that houses the Mid Nightclub at 306 N. Halsted Street, rounding out the investor's full block ownership. Thor, which is now one of the most active land owners on the eastern end of Fulton Market, secured most of the buildings on the block through a 2016 deal in which it paid $36 million for several Fulton Market properties owned by meatpacker John R. Morreale Meat.

Earlier this year, Thor paid $12.3 million for the neighboring former Isaacson & Stein Fish buildings at 800-810 W. Fulton St. With this property, Thor will now be able to raze the entire block and build there from the ground up after getting city approval and a resolution of the Mid's lease of the building. Terms of the lease are still unclear but the club co-owners Lucas King and Nick Karounas announced a few days ago that the club will close in February 2019. 

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The new Thor project would add to the roughly 6 million square feet of offices that is under construction or in the planning phase in fulton Market, which has revamped the area into a fashionable corporate destination with high-end hotels, restaurants and retailers. 

Leasing activity downtown has been really strong during this job market and has increased the downtown office vacancy rate to 13.3 percent at the end of the third quarter, according to real estate brokerage CBRE.

Thor has wagered heavily on Fulton Market but is best known for his ownership of the Palmer House Hilton hotel in the Loop. The investor also owns a pair of buildings on the 900 block of Fulton, an office building at 216-226 N. Peoria St. and one further west at 1229 W. Randolph St.

Thor Equities is a real estate development, leasing and management firm, with headquarters in New York City, London and Mexico City. Thor Equities owns property in the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, India and Latin America, including London's historic Burlington Arcade.

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