The sale and redevelopment of the vacant and decaying post office that looms over the western entrance to downtown Chicago has been given a timetable by the city.
The tentative deal between the property's interested buyer and the city establishes a "strict timeline" for a sale and plan to redevelop the old main post office, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a press release on Tuesday.
The specifics are:
Last month, the British owner of the building straddling Congress Parkway struck a deal to sell the property to a New York-based investment group, 601W Cos., for an undisclosed amount. 601 could not be reached for immediate comment late Tuesday afternoon.
"The buyer appears to be an experienced commercial property owner with the expertise and financial capacity to meet our goals for the building, so we're providing strict terms and conditions for a purchase to close in a timely fashion and a redevelopment plan that's satisfactory to the city," Emanuel said.
The tentative settlement includes a deadline of June 1, 2016, for the buyer to complete the purchase of the 2.5 million-square-foot structure and adjacent properties currently owned by British developer Bill Davies' International Property Developers North America. The city said it would also require approval of a formal redevelopment plan, including a budget, economic disclosures, financing arrangements, uses, site plans, and a timeline to fix the "numerous structural, safety and hazardous conditions that have led to more than more than 20 building code citations since 2012."
If 601W misses the June 1 deadline, the city said it will again seek proposals to redevelop the property, and restart the process to acquire the property, which could also involve the selection of a new developer.
We're not holding our breath, but hopefully this is the type of pressure that gets the deal done.
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