Bill Davies, owner of one of the oldest Post Office building in Chicago, died at 82 just a day after announcing the sale of the building to the City Hall.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the end of the deal for the Chicago’s Old Post Office on Friday, saying that the buyers were moving forward with a $500 million redevelopment plan that will reportedly create thousands of new job opportunities for the citizens of Chicago. Unfortunately, Davies passed away at 10pm the day after.
Sue Sadler, a spokeswoman for Davies’ company, stated that he died due a “short illness.” Davies was the owner of International Property Developers.
It was told that Davies sold the 2.5 million-square-foot building to a developer of the 601W Companies LLC. It happened faster than the city expected to take this building back to activity again.
Davies acquired the building back in 2009 for the amount of $24 million. The building served as a multi-purpose office to one of the companies Davies had, International Property Developers.
The building had many expensive investments, where on the “first phase” of the building, about $3.5 billion were invested to eventually create more buildings next to it and a 16 million square feet residence, that included entertainment areas, offices, and retails. The project was never made, but Davies announced later the proposal of building a tower on the post office property and to develop the massive building into a 1,500-unit apartment complex.
Davies later teamed up with some other developers from Sterling Bay that later offered $150 million to buy the property outrights from him, where Davies rejected the offer. Later, Gulf Resources Development & Investment made a $150 million offer on the building, and it was rejected too.
Source: Chicago Tribune