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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Australian owner of Chase Tower has put the building up for sale with an asking price of $180 million.
The 48-story tower, the city’s tallest, is about 98-percent occupied. The offering also includes the adjacent 12-story Circle Building, for a total of 1.1 million square feet.
The building is hitting the market at a time when few buyers are looking and few banks are lending – timing that suggests the owners are highly motivated, said Jon Owens, a principal in the local office of Colliers Turley Martin Tucker.
“Certainly the capital markets will render it a challenge,” he said. “It’s just not a positive time to sell. Most buyers today are sitting on the sideline because they think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Macquarie Office Trust paid a total of $170.6 million for the property in two transactions in 2004 and 2005. The tower was built in 1989, and the Circle Building went up in 1959.
The company, which owns 43 prime office properties primarily in the United States and Australia, has run into trouble with a huge debt load. It is offering Chase Tower as part of an effort to pay down or refinance debt that comes due this year.
Macquarie’s shares, which are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange, have fallen 80 percent in the past year and now fetch about 23 cents each.
The Chicago office of New York-based brokerage Eastdil Secured is handling the listing.
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