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 中国人来了！芝加哥汽车俱乐部拍卖纪实。 |
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heyidion
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作者：heyidion 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
https://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2011/06/the-scene-at-the-motor-club-auction-art-deco-elegance-meets-marketplace-reality-.html
The scene at the old Chicago Motor Club Building auction: Where Art Deco elegance meets marketplace reality
Share | The high-speed patter of the tuxedo-wearing auctioneer— "8 million, 8 million, do I have 8 and a half million?" — sounded like something you'd hear in a Texas cattle market. Only the property being sold Thursday wasn't steers and heifers.
It was the old Chicago Motor Club Building, a sliver of high style and faded elegance just west of Michigan Avenue at 68 E. Wacker Place..
This is a building with an impeccable aesthetic pedigree, designed by Chicago architects Holabird & Root and full of custom-designed features, like a mural map of the United States by John Warner Norton in its soaring lobby. The city of Chicago already has signaled its intention to make the vacant, 15-story building, which opened in 1928, an official landmark.
Yet here it was being sold off in a court-ordered bankruptcy auction at a nondescript hunk of hospitality architecture, the Intercontinental O'Hare Hotel at 5300 N. River Road in Rosemont.
Jets on the landing path to O'Hare International Airport screamed past, wheels down. A crowd of about 30 paced back and forth on an ordinary plaid carpet, heavy on reds and greens. Chicago developer Sam Roti, a distant relative of the late Chicago Ald. Fred Roti, stood quietly to one side of the room.
A venture led by Roti had tried to convert the old Motor Club Building and a vacant adjoining property into a Virgin Hotel, but the deal fell through. Roti filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court ordered an auction.
The Chicago auctioneer, Rick Levin, suggested an opening bid of $500,000, which turned out to be a great attention-getter. To the uninformed, it sounded as though you could buy the old Motor Club Building for the price a nice suburban house. Wiser heads knew the winning bid would likely be in the millions, given the building's quality and location.
About 15 minutes after 11 a.m. on Thursday, the first bid came in — at $2 million.
Just under 3 minutes and 45 seconds later, the bidding had reached $8.7 million.
Then came a surprise, at least for those not used to attending auctions: The auctioneer called for a pause to give the leading bidders, including a group of Chinese investors (left, with Harlan Powers, an auctioneer and ring man), time to think things over.
Then the numbers climbed again--$9 million, $9.5 million.
Levin jumped in to remind the crowd about the building's location — one block from such iconic buildings as the Trump International Hotel & Tower.
He didn't have to mention the drop-dead views from the old Motor Club Building's west side toward Marina City's corncobs and down the Chicago River. A slick brochure (left) had already done that.
Another pause ensued, this time to let the Chinese investors make cell phone calls — presumably to bosses calling the shots on how much to offer.
Then, more bidding: $9.6 million …$9.7 million …and no takers at $9.8 million.
The gavel sounded.
And the winning bidders turned out be Aries Capital, a Chicago-based commercial mortgage banking firm. They were a junior lender to Roti's venture and won a foreclosure case against it last year.
Aries Capital's chairman and chief executive officer, Neil Freeman (left), said his goal would be "to preserve the building, not to knock it down."
He declined further comment about the firm's plans for the building, leaving one of the historic preservationists in attendance uncertain about what Freeman and his firm might do. "This is the first I've heard of him," said Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago.
Under ordinary circumstances, he and other preservationists would be wringing their hands over the fate of the Motor Club Building.
But the city has already swept in to safeguard the building, its Landmarks Commission having voting earlier this year to grant preliminary protected status. So even in the wake of Thursday's auction, we can rest assured that, for now at least, no owner can destroy it.
(Tribune photos by Antonio Perez)
作者：heyidion 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 中国人来了！芝加哥汽车俱乐部拍卖纪实。 -- heyidion - (4358 Byte) 2011-7-07 周四, 13:01 (2371 reads)
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