Sixty-Story Tower to Rise in Chicago CBD

CHICAGO – Pritzker Realty Group LP and Prime Group Realty Trust, haveannounced that HT-HQ Office LLC, a Hyatt Corp. affiliate, and an affiliateof Prime have formed a joint venture to develop a 60-story office tower indowntown Chicago. Under the agreement, the Hyatt affiliate will provide 80%of the required equity, and Prime will provide 20% of the required equity,to develop the tower and to acquire a 1.4-acre site at Wacker Dr. and MonroeSt., which is currently owned by Prime.

The new office tower – the third in recently years on the major Wacker Dr.thoroughfare – will be the future headquarters for Hyatt Corp., which hascommitted to lease up to 400,000 sf of thebuilding’s anticipated 1.2 million sf. The Pritzker Organization will alsoprobably take space there, perhaps as much as 100,000 sf.

Higgins Development Partners LLC, which is owned by interests of thePritzker family and Jack Higgins, will develop the property, along withPrime Group Realty Trust, which has been repositioning itself in recentmonths by selling many of its assets. Sir Norman Foster, a well-knownBritish architect, has been selected to design the building, his first inChicago. Among other projects, Sir Norman is the designer of the new GermanParliament and the Great Court of the British Museum in London. He also isthe 1999 recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

“Construction is projected to begin before the end of 2001 and to becompleted by the summer of 2004, and total project costs are estimated to beapproximately $350 million,” notes Jack Higgins of Higgins DevelopmentPartners. Julien J. Studley’s Chicago office represented Pritzker RealtyGroup in the transaction.

There are 198 Hyatt Hotels and resorts around the world, divided betweenHyatt International Corp. and Hyatt Hotels Corp., a separate company.Pritzker Realty Group LP is the real estate investment advisory group andasset manager arm of the billionaire Pritzker family. Prime Group RealtyTrust owns, manages, leases and develops office and industrial real estate,primarily in theChicago area.