Zara’s billionaire founder, Amancio Ortega, recently purchased the 51-story building at 1 N. Wacker Drive in Chicago for approximately $550 million. The transaction covers a $353 million existing CMBS loan.

The sale is one of the priciest office deals in the country this year. Only two larger full-building office trades occurred nationwide in 2026: the $730M sale of Park Avenue Tower in New York City and the $691M sale of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco.

In Chicago, the deal is the largest outright office sale since the Aon Center sold for $712M in 2015. The 51-story tower at 1 N. Wacker was completed in 2001 and is about 94% leased to tenants including PwC, UBS, and Fitch Ratings.

Ponte Gadea, Ortega’s real estate investment arm, has made another major investment in Chicago. In 2023, it acquired a 492-unit apartment tower at 727 W. Madison St. for almost $232M.

Irvine Co. has exited a Chicago property for the first time with this deal. The company still owns two other trophy office towers in the city: 71 S. Wacker Drive and 300 N. LaSalle St. The sale of 1 N. Wacker has been in the works for months, with Irvine Co. reportedly beginning to shop the property as early as January.

Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director Jeff Skender noted that the property has top-of-the-market rates and minimal vacancy. Skender stated that owners must consider the reward in the current capital markets environment when they bring their property to market, given their efforts to maintain face rates.

Sale Not Yet Recorded and Highest Valuation Since 2022

The transaction had not appeared in Cook County property records as of Wednesday evening.

The deal marks the highest office building valuation since the Bank of America Tower equity interest sold for $210 million in March 2022, a transaction that placed the tower’s implied value above $1 billion. That prior sale remains the most recent benchmark for multi-hundred-million office transactions in the United States.