In such a polarized country, even billionaires like JB Pritzker and Ken Griffin won’t let their political rivalries get in the way of their businesses.
Illinois governor earlier this month paid the founder of investment firm Citadel $19 million for the top two floors of a 38-story luxury building in Chicago’s Near North Side, where Griffin once resided, sources close to the case.
The combined purchase of the 9 W. Walton St. building represents the highest price ever paid this year for a residence in the Chicago area, and it is the fourth highest price ever paid for a home within the city limits. the city of Chicago. But it also meant that Griffin, who moved to Florida with his business two years ago, lost more than $15 million on the two condominiums in the real estate deal with his political foe.
A Pritzker spokesperson said only that “the governor and first lady recently purchased a condo in Chicago. They love the city and Chicago has welcomed them for many years. A spokesperson for Griffin did not immediately respond to comment.
The Pritzker-Griffin rivalry dates back to at least 2018, when the Democrat largely self-funded his campaign to defeat one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, a wealthy stock investor whose reelection bid was backed by more than 20 million voters. Griffin Dollars.
The battle of the billionaires intensified two years later, when Pritzker spent more than $56 million of his fortune to unsuccessfully advance a proposed constitutional amendment to move Illinois to a system of Progressive rate income tax with higher levies based on wealth. Griffin led the opposition to the proposed amendment, also spending nearly $54 million of his own money.
At one point during discussions around the high-profile proposal, Griffin sent an email to Citadel employees in which he accused Pritzker of being a “shameless master of personal tax evasion.”
While Pritzker was running for his second term in 2022, the two were back when Griffin financed a slate of Republican candidates to run for every statewide office, including Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin at governorship.
Despite Griffin’s $50 million endorsement of Irvin, he finished third in the GOP primary won by former state Sen. Darren Bailey. Before the primaries, Pritzker contributed $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association, which in turn aired television ads circuitously encouraging Republicans to vote for Bailey by calling him conservative and “too extreme” for the party. Illinois.
Pritzker ended up beating Bailey by about 12 percentage points in the general election. Also that year, Griffin returned to his home state of Florida, issuing harsh criticism of Chicago’s crime rate upon his departure.
Pritzker called Griffin and Richard Uihlein, a billionaire donor who supported Bailey’s unsuccessful bid for governor, “two of the biggest MAGA Republican billionaires in the country.”
Pritzker, the heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, is worth about $3.7 billion, according to Forbes.
While living in Illinois, Griffin was long dubbed the state’s richest resident. The latest Forbes ranking gives Griffin a net worth of over $40 billion.
He founded Citadel in Chicago in 1990, making it one of the world’s largest hedge funds.
He has also been a philanthropic force for various civic causes in Chicago over the years, giving more than $600 million to institutions such as the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the University of Chicago. Earlier this year, the Museum of Science and Industry officially added Kenneth C. Griffin to the front of its name, a rebranding in the works since its $125 million gift in 2019.
So far, Pritzker is not explicitly identified in any public documents as the individual buyer of Griffin’s two condos on Walton.
Public records reviewed by the Tribune show that Chicago Skyline Properties LLC, a Delaware limited liability company formed last year, was the buyer of the 15,000-square-foot unbuilt space, which includes a private swimming pool on the roof and pavilion.
Real estate agent Katherine Malkin, who represented Pritzker, and agents Nancy Tassone and Emily Sachs Wong, who represented Griffin, all declined to comment Tuesday on the transaction.
Griffin purchased the two full-floor units in late 2017 – each containing 7,500 square feet of gross space – for $21,166,000 and $12,949,500, respectively, for a total of $34,115,500. The Nov. 12 sales of the top floor of the 38th floor — with its private rooftop pool, terrace and pavilion — and the 37th floor for $10 million and $9 million, respectively, mean that together, Griffin has lost more than $15.1 million on building construction costs. two upper floors.
In total, Griffin paid $58.75 million in late 2017 for four floors, which he never built or completed. Of the other two floors he still owns, Griffin currently owns the 7,500-square-foot unit on the 36th floor of 9 W. Walton, actively for sale right now, for $8.5 million, while that the 35th floor is not actively marketed publicly.
Pritzker wouldn’t be the only billionaire residing at 9 W. Walton. Steven Crown’s venerable Crown family of Chicago paid $17.4 million in 2022 for the full-floor unit on the 34th floor, just one level below Griffin’s four units.
Pritzker’s bulk purchase of the two units represents the fourth-highest amount ever spent on a residence in Chicago. Some of those who built their own abodes probably paid more, but in terms of changing hands, the Pritzker-Griffin transaction trails only Griffin’s previous $58.75 million overall purchase of the 9 W units. Walton’s 2017 $20.56 million purchase from Mexican billionaire German Larrea. in 2022 of a 10,000 square foot penthouse on the 71st floor of The Residences at The St. Regis Tower and private equity director Bryan Cressey purchased the 14,260 square foot single-story penthouse for $20 million in 2022 sold out on the 89th floor of the Trump International Hotel & Tower.
Additionally, retired billionaire filmmaker and “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, paid $18.75 million in 2015 for the full-floor penthouse on the 65th floor of the Park Tower, then the couple paid $11.2 million over eight years. later for the full-floor, 8,000-square-foot penthouse condominium on the 66th floor of Park Tower. This means that even though the two deals were eight years apart, Lucas and Hobson have now spent a total of $29.95 million to assemble a 16,000 square foot duplex unit in the Park Tower that they are in the process of create and complete.
It remains to be seen what Pritzker will do with the two side-by-side mansions he owns on Astor Street on the Gold Coast. Through a Delaware LLC, Pritzker paid $14.5 million in 2006 for his primary residence — a 12,500-square-foot vintage mansion on Astor Street — and he paid another $3.675 million later that year for a 6,387-square-foot vintage mansion next door. The $14.5 million he paid in 2006 for the larger mansion was the highest price ever paid for a Chicago residence to that point.
The adjacent mansion is one that Pritzker vacated and then, according to a Cook County inspector general report, the future governor in the early 2010s asked contractors to remove five toilets as part of a project rehabilitation in order to persuade the Cook County assessor to classify it as “uninhabitable” in order to alleviate its property tax burden. The breaks initially saved Pritzker $330,000 in property taxes. In 2018, he agreed to repay that $330,000 to the Cook County treasurer.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelancer.
Originally published:
