Fengate and Mavrek break ground on a 380-unit West Loop bet with no rent roll

Fengate Asset Management and Mavrek Development have broken ground on Julep West Loop, a 25-story mixed-use tower in Chicago's West Loop that will hold 380 apartments, 76 of them affordable, above more than 21,500 square feet of commercial space anchored by an international grocery store, with Skender as general contractor and a 21-month build expected to put first occupancy in early 2028. The coverage puts no price on the project and names no capital partner beyond the two sponsors.

The location is the thesis. The site sits between Fulton Market, the Chicago Loop and the Illinois Medical District, three employment centers with established transit, retail and dining attached, and Fengate's Alexander Glassman, a managing director of U.S. investments in the firm's real estate business, calls it a supply story: demand for Chicago housing continues to outpace supply, he says, and that makes now the time to advance well-located mixed-use. The sponsor's claim is load-bearing because nothing else in the release sets the underwriting.

This publication has argued that apartment capital is clearing on operations rather than rent growth, and a building that does not exist until 2028 sits outside that frame. There is no rent roll to manage for another 21 months, so the bet is the corner and the construction cost, not the leasing team. That trade carries its own bill: Fengate and Mavrek absorb the delivery-date risk that stabilized owners avoid, and the dirt has to stay worth what they paid for it through a lease-up starting from zero units.

One unit in five is affordable, 76 of 380, which likely means two leasing tracks running out of a single building, one at market and one limited to households that qualify. That split is the piece a construction lender reads hardest, and it does not get simpler when 304 market-rate units arrive in one submarket at once.

Programming a second income stream into an infill site has become the standard defense for ground-up residential, and it is the logic behind Pivot's plan in Nashville, where the $55.25 million Fifth Third Center will be split, splitting the Fifth Third Center between an LXR hotel and Hilton Grand Vacations timeshares. In the West Loop the grocery store does that work, carrying commercial rent and foot traffic under the apartments. Fengate and Mavrek are selling the corner, not the unit count, and with no rent roll to defend for another 21 months, the anchor lease and the construction calendar are carrying the underwriting.