EXCLUSIVE: Opal Holdings’ Former 700K SF Suburban Chicago Office Campus Hits The Market

A four-building suburban office campus is going up for sale in suburban Deerfield, a major test of investor appetite for sizable office assets outside the city. 

Hilco Real Estate and First Financial Network are seeking bids for the leasehold interest in Corporate 500, a 697K SF office campus at 500 – 540 Lake Cook Road in ​Deerfield, Hilco shared exclusively with Bisnow. The deadline for bids is Sept. 10.

It’s unclear how many buyers are in the market for large suburban Chicago office properties, as only two properties larger than 250K SF have traded in the past three quarters, Colliers reports. 

The campus is 72% leased to a mix of more than 37 tenants across healthcare, financial services, life sciences, insurance and professional services. The property has several long-term tenants with lease commitments extending into the next decade and a weighted average lease term of approximately 5.9 years. 

Corporate 500 has had a tumultuous ownership history over the last several years. 

New Jersey-based investor Shaya Prager’s Opal Holdings scooped up the property for $178.2M in November 2021 as part of multiple billions of dollars he bet on suburban office buildings hammered by the pandemic. As part of the deal, Prager borrowed $104M from Unify Financial Credit Union and entered into a 99-year ground lease with business partner Katherine Cartagena, according to The Real Deal.

But Opal allegedly defaulted on the leasehold loan from Unify in 2023, which led to a $106M foreclosure lawsuit. Prager tried to fight the proceeding, but a judge found the company in default and issued a $130M judgment against the landlord. 

Greenstate Credit Union won the leasehold interest in the property at a sheriff’s sale in November.

In April, the campus landed Baxter International offshoot Vantive’s new U.S. headquarters at 510 Lake Cook Road. Vantive pledged to invest $23M in the headquarters, a space formerly home to construction equipment giant Caterpillar before it relocated to Texas in 2022. 

Hilco is marketing the property as an opportunity for potential investors to pursue “operating upside” with value-add potential through the lease-up of nearly 200K SF of available space, the company stated in a release. 

First Financial CEO Bliss Morris said beyond the property itself, the surrounding communities provide access to an educated workforce, affluent customer demographic and strong executive housing base.  

“These locational fundamentals, combined with the scale and quality of Corporate 500, create a compelling opportunity for an investor to control a prominent suburban office campus with meaningful repositioning potential, strong accessibility and durable market relevance,” Morris said in a statement.