LaSalle Investment Management Sells Geneva Commons for $60M Loss

LaSalle Investment Management took a massive loss on a 438,000-square-foot Geneva shopping center this month. 

The firm sold its portion of Geneva Commons, at 620 Commons Drive, to Lamar Companies for $63.7 million after buying it for $124 million in 2013, Kane County records show. The sale price is about $145 per square foot.

Lamar Companies took out a $60.2 million loan with Banc of California to finance the deal. 

Representatives of the firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

CBRE’s George Good, Richard A. Frolik and Christian Williams brokered the sale.

The transaction is the latest in a string of distressed suburban shopping mall sales. It also marks the second major hit LaSalle Investment Group has taken on a property in the past two years.

In the last two years, Barry Steinlicht’s firm Starwood Capital has defaulted on three loans for suburban Chicago malls, totaling $232 million. It also sold a fourth mall for $30 million, or about half its loan value, according to those familiar with the deal.

LaSalle Investment Management was dealt a blow on the sale of a suburban Chicago apartment complex about a year ago. LaSalle sold The Woodview Apartments in Deerfield for $65 million last May, resulting in a 20 percent loss for the company.

Geneva Commons was in distress when LaSalle Investment Management bought it. 

The previous owners, two ventures tied to Atlanta-based Invesco, bought it for $127 million in 2005 and later defaulted on a $76 million loan for the property in 2013, Crain’s reported at the time. The shopping center had a solid line up of tenants, but rents were falling and reducing cash flow, Crains reported.

Working with servicers, they avoided foreclosure and paid off the loan with proceeds from the sale to LaSalle Investment Management. 

CIM Group sold a separate, smaller portion on the northern end of the shopping center last year. Beachwood, Ohio-based real estate investment fund Mid-America Management Corporation paid $22.6 million for a 133,000-square-foot section of Geneva Commons, at 702-718 Commons Drive.