In mid-June we relayed a news release announcing that the new Coast apartment tower in Lakeshore East was 50% leased after four months on the market – “a record setting pace,” according to an executive of the building’s leasing and management firm. If you read between the lines of our earlier post you’ll sense our skepticism.
The pace of leasing at Coast has apparently slowed. As of yesterday evening, the building’s online availability check listed 55 of its 499 units available for rent, all of them studios, convertibles and one-bedrooms. Fifty-three of the units were available for immediate occupancy and two for occupancy on January 7.
Coast’s website touts “new end of the year holiday rent specials” on all of its unit types, including the unavailable two-bedrooms.
Definitely not a good sign, but it’s a known fact that December-February are very slow months for rentals in Chicago, and I’m sure that would affect even the hottest neighborhoods.
Who the hell would want to move in this arctic cold weather? It’s hard to get anyone to do anything this time a year unless you are paying them an arm and a leg. The roofer on a building I’m rehabbing in the city has been “finishing the roof this weekend” for about a month now.
Is 11% vacancy bad considering when this opened for occupancy?
Achieving 89% occupancy – if that’s the number – in 8 months is a great success on a project of this size.