"Two years ago I thought I was going to die with these condos," Jim Letchinger told The Real Deal in September. Letchinger heads JDL Development, the firm that built One Chicago at 14 West Superior Street in River North. When he said this, his tower held the two highest residential sales anywhere in Chicago in 2026.
That same summer, the same building turned up in a very different story. On July 6, 2026, Crain's Chicago Business reported that a full-floor One Chicago unit had "went under contract at $13.9 million a few years back" and had now sold for $5.3 million. Crain's offered the sale as the latest sign that Chicago's downtown condo market "has had its wings clipped."
Both reports are accurate, and they don't contradict each other. They describe two different products under one roof. In the upper tier of River North, the market is pricing whether a residence is finished and ready to move into. Altitude and the general mood about downtown matter less. And the neighborhood is building almost nothing that would add to the supply of finished condos.
Same Tower, Same Summer, Very Different Numbers
Here are One Chicago's upper-floor results as the reporting tells them:
| Floor | What was reported | Price | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 73rd | Full floor, 6,085 sq ft, marketed as finished, contingent within days, never closed | $13.95M asking | January 2023 |
| 72nd | Sold as raw space, then built out for the buyer | $8.9M | Early 2025 |
| 69th | Finished by the developer, closed | $7.9M | Mid-August 2026 |
| 70th | 6,100 sq ft, finished by the developer, closed | $8M | September 8, 2026 |
| 73rd, Unit 7300 | Sold as raw, unfinished space | $5.25M | Reported July 6, 2026 |
The $5.3 million sale was the 73rd floor. The Real Deal reported in January 2023 that this full-floor residence listed at $13.95 million and went contingent in under three days. That deal never closed. Public records show that JDL later sold Unit 7300 to an undisclosed buyer for $5.25 million, which Crain's rounded to $5.3 million. It sold as raw, unfinished space. In 2023, the same floor had been marketed as a finished, furnished residence that was ready to move into.
That makes the gap easy to measure. Spread over 6,085 square feet, $5.25 million comes to about $860 per square foot. The finished 70th floor, three floors down, closed at about $1,310 per square foot. The floor plates are almost the same size, and the higher floor, sold unfinished, went for less.
What a Buyer of Raw Space Is Actually Taking On
The reason is in Letchinger's explanation, published in January 2026, of why JDL changed course. The firm first planned to sell its top floors as raw space. It assumed ultra-wealthy buyers would want to hire their own contractors and design custom residences. Instead, the units sat on the market.
"They don't want to deal with the contractor, they don't want to deal with building it. They're all dry-walled now, and delivery is much shorter. That's the other thing, people don't want to wait."
The quote names two costs, and neither shows up in a listing's price per square foot. One is the work of running a high-rise build-out yourself: design, contractor selection, building approvals and every decision in between. The other is time. A raw floor bought today is a home sometime later. A finished floor is a home at closing.
The order of events supports this reading. The 72nd floor was marketed as raw space, but JDL ended up building it out for the buyer, and it sold for $8.9 million in early 2025. Letchinger said the interest from people who toured it led JDL to finish the remaining units. The 69th floor had been on the market for more than a year. It went under contract in January 2026 at an asking price of nearly $8 million, after JDL committed to finishing it. It closed at $7.9 million in mid-August. The 70th followed at $8 million on September 8.
The lower tier tells the same story at a smaller scale. According to property records cited by The Real Deal, about 60 One Chicago condos have sold since 2022. Those were finished units, with an average sale price of about $3 million and most sales between $1 million and $4 million. The reporting describes them as more successful than the highest floors. Letchinger described a run of 16 condo sales in three months as late 2024 turned into early 2025.
For a buyer comparing towers, the takeaway is practical. A low price per square foot on a raw or dated unit may be fair. Much of the difference can be the cost of the build-out and the months before you can move in. A seller of an unfinished or heavily dated residence is competing against finished floors, often in the same building, that buyers can move into right away.
Why Finished Condo Inventory Keeps Getting Scarcer
The second part of the picture is supply. One Chicago is mostly a rental building. Its 77 condominiums start on the 44th floor, above a 735-unit apartment section and a retail base that includes Whole Foods and Life Time. Now that the upper floors have been finished and sold, Letchinger says the developer has very little luxury condo inventory left. The 71st floor was under contract in September and expected to close about six weeks later, around late October. "People want condos," he said. "We don't have any more product."
The rest of River North's 2026 pipeline won't change that. The housing being added nearby comes from office-to-residential conversions planned as apartments, and several of them include no car parking:
- 401 W. Ontario: Monroe Residential Partners received a renovation permit in September 2026 to turn a four-story office building into 57 units. The plan has 57 bike spaces and zero car parking, after a zoning variation cut the required parking from 40 spaces to none.
- 223 W. Erie: Concord Capital's permitted $18.4 million conversion will turn 24 office suites into 66 homes, with no car parking.
- 56 E. Superior: Honore Properties has a permit to convert vacant office space into 88 apartments plus retail, also with no car parking.
- 111 Point: This office-to-apartment conversion had leased 100 of its 153 apartments by July 2026, after preleasing began in April.
That adds up to hundreds of new homes in River North, nearly all of them rentals. Anyone who wants to own a finished condo there is buying from the existing stock of towers, and that stock includes units of very different ages and conditions.
Citywide figures point the same way. Illinois REALTORS reported that in August 2026, Chicago had 3,541 homes for sale, down 23.3% from a year earlier. The citywide median price was $405,000, up 8.0%. Those numbers cover every residential sale in the city, not River North condos specifically. They do show tighter inventory, which is the same direction Letchinger describes at the top of the market.
Questions to Ask Before You Write an Offer
These questions follow from the One Chicago story and apply to any River North listing:
- Is the unit finished, and to what standard? Drywalled and move-in ready, original finishes from the 2000s, and raw space are three different products, even at the same address.
- How long until I can live there? Letchinger's point that "people don't want to wait" suggests delivery time is part of the price. Get a realistic timeline for any work the unit needs before you compare prices per square foot.
- Who is doing the build-out? At One Chicago, the change came when the developer took on the construction itself. If you are responsible for it, include the full cost of managing it in your comparison.
- Is the developer still selling in the building? If so, a resale unit competes directly with the developer's inventory, which may be finished to newer specifications.
- Which comparable sales were finished, and which weren't? The same 73rd floor went from a $13.95 million asking price as a finished home to a $5.25 million sale as raw space. That shows how much the answer can change the picture.
A Few Direct Questions
Is the downtown Chicago condo market falling or rising? At One Chicago in 2026, it depended on the product. The reported $5.3 million full-floor sale and the city's two highest residential sales came from the same tower in the same summer. Ask about the specific unit and building before relying on a general verdict about downtown.
Were the 2026 One Chicago sales resales? No. The $7.9 million and $8 million closings were sales of developer inventory, and JDL was represented in both.
Does financing a condo depend on the building as well as the unit? More so than before. Freddie Mac ended its streamlined condo project review for mortgage applications received on or after August 3, 2026, and tightened its reserve study requirements. Starting January 4, 2027, the minimum reserve allocation rises from 10% to 15% of an association's annual budgeted assessment income. Axios reported that the changes make a seller's ability to close more dependent on the building's records. Ask your lender how these rules apply to the building you are considering.
Whether you are weighing a finished floor against a lower-priced unit that needs work, or deciding how to present a dated residence against new move-in-ready competition, the build-out question deserves the same attention as the view. Jennifer Williams, Inc. brings more than 30 years of combined construction and real estate experience to that assessment. Let's Connect and walk through what a specific River North unit would take to finish, and what that work is worth.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
