Two law firms have rewritten their leases at AMA Plaza in downtown Chicago while the tower sits inside an active foreclosure proceeding and is being readied for sale — a useful illustration of what leverage looks like when a landlord has no choice but to sell.
Latham & Watkins is taking an additional 35,274 square feet and extending its lease by seven years, lifting it to upwards of 194,000 square feet and making it the building's second-largest tenant. Swanson, Martin & Bell is extending by 12 years but shrinking from 91,000 square feet to 56,760.
The moves matter because of who is on the other side of the table. Hilco Global is the court-appointed receiver for 330 North Wabash Avenue, and it has hired JLL to find a buyer for the building, following a $372 million foreclosure complaint filed in 2024. The previous owners, a venture of Beacon Capital Partners, paid $468 million for it in 2016.
The net figure is smaller than the headline
Add up the two transactions and the building's occupied footprint barely moves. Latham gained 35,274 square feet; Swanson, Martin & Bell gave back 34,240. The net change across both deals is roughly 1,034 square feet.
That reframes the story. What was transacted here was not space but term — seven and twelve years of contracted income in a building whose ownership is unresolved. For a receiver preparing a sale, committed duration from credit tenants is more valuable than a marginal change in occupancy, because a buyer underwrites the income stream.
The two directions also tell different stories about the tenants. A firm taking twelve years while cutting its footprint by nearly 38% is buying a lower long-term cost base and accepting a longer commitment to get it. A firm taking seven years while growing 22% is consolidating into better space. Both are rational; only one is expansion.
Two occupancy numbers that are not the same number
Coverage of the building cited 83% leasing as of March against a downtown average occupancy rating of 72%. Those metrics are not directly comparable, and conflating them is the most common error in office reporting.
"Leased" measures space under contract, including space signed but not yet occupied. "Occupied" measures desks actually in use. A building can be substantially leased while running well below that in physical attendance, and the gap between the two is the single clearest indicator of the hybrid-work effect.
The premium-versus-commodity split described in the reporting is nonetheless consistent with what has been happening across large downtown markets: demand has concentrated in a small number of high-quality buildings while the broader average drifts. AMA Plaza, designed by Mies van der Rohe, competes on something a new building cannot replicate, which is part of why it holds tenants even in receivership.
Reading the two price figures correctly
$468 million in 2016 and a $372 million foreclosure complaint in 2024 invite an obvious subtraction, and that subtraction would be wrong.
A foreclosure complaint pleads an amount owed — unpaid principal together with interest, fees and advances accrued to the date of filing — not a valuation of the property. It is also typically less than the balance at origination, since loans amortise and since a lender will have funded less than the purchase price in the first place.
The honest reading is narrower but still stark: the equity that acquired the tower has been wiped out or is close to it, control has passed to a receiver, and whatever the building sells for will first be applied to the debt. Any remaining loss depends on the sale price, which has not been disclosed.
Public background on the loan points to a familiar sequence. Reporting cited by property trackers describes a floating-rate structure whose interest cost had risen enough that annual debt service exceeded the building's net income by 2023, a maturity originally scheduled for June 2024 that was pushed out a year, and a transfer to special servicing after a missed payment. Valuations diverged widely — the Cook County appraiser's assessment cited in that material was $483.4 million against a lender figure of $550.5 million. Those background figures come from an aggregator and should be verified against court filings before being relied on.
The tenancy risk that follows the sale
Whatever these two extensions achieve, they do not solve the file's largest open item. Smithbucklin, the association management firm occupying 106,000 square feet, has a lease expiring next year and has been in discussions regarding space at the Aon Center.
A tenant of that size leaving would undo the good news almost exactly: it is larger than the space either law firm added, and it would land while a new owner is still stabilising the asset. It also changes the buyer pool, because pricing assumptions built on 83% leasing do not survive the loss of a 106,000-square-foot occupant.
Note also what the rankings imply: with roughly 194,000 square feet, Latham & Watkins is described as the second-largest tenant, so at least one occupant holds more space than that. Multiples large expiries in a building being sold is the specific combination that makes bids conservative.
What the buyer is actually buying
A court-appointed receiver sells for the benefit of the estate and the lender, generally on an as-is basis with limited representations. That compresses diligence time and shifts risk onto the buyer, which usually shows up in a lower price rather than in conditions that cannot be met.
The counterweight is precisely what the two law firms have now delivered: long-dated income from investment-grade-quality credits, in a building whose architecture cannot be duplicated, bought at a basis well below 2016 replacement-era pricing. Whether that is enough to clear the debt at a level the lender accepts is the open question, and the eventual price per square foot — against the roughly $410 per square foot reportedly paid in 2016 — is the number to watch.
Watch list
- Whether Smithbucklin renews at AMA Plaza or relocates, and whether any counter-offer is made by the receiver before the lease expires.
- The eventual sale price, expressed per square foot, measured against 2016.
- Whether the lender takes the loss or pursues a deficiency claim, depending on structure and applicable law.
- Whether further lease extensions follow; additional long-term commitments would strengthen the buyer's financing case.
- Downtown Chicago's occupied-versus-leased spread, which is moving more slowly than headline recovery narratives suggest.
Sources
- Reporting on the July 2026 transactions at 330 North Wabash Avenue: Latham & Watkins adding 35,274 square feet for roughly 194,000 total under a seven-year extension, becoming the second-largest tenant; Swanson, Martin & Bell extending 12 years while reducing from 91,000 to 56,760 square feet; 83% leasing as of March against a 72% downtown average; the $372 million foreclosure complaint filed in 2024; the 2016 acquisition by a Beacon Capital Partners venture at $468 million; Hilco Global's appointment as receiver; JLL's mandate to sell; and Smithbucklin's 106,000 square feet with a lease expiring next year and reported discussions with the Aon Center.
- Chicago Business reporting from 2016 on the roughly $470 million sale to Beacon Capital Partners at around $410 per square foot.
- A property-tracker entry recording the closing date as 14 July 2026 and listing a figure of 250,760 square feet, which equals the sum of the two lease areas and therefore appears to be a transaction aggregate rather than building size.
- Secondary background material on the loan: maturity originally set for June 2024 and extended a year; referral to special servicing after a missed payment; debt service exceeding net income by 2023; and the cited valuation disparity between the Cook County appraiser and the lenders. These items come from an aggregator and have not been verified against court documents.
- Note: the net change of approximately 1,034 square feet and the percentage changes cited are the author's calculations from the reported lease figures. Analysis of the occupancy metrics, foreclosure-claim arithmetic, receiver-sale dynamics and the watch list is the author's.
