The real estate agent for the Chicago Baptist Institute said much of the interest so far has come from hotels looking to profit from the potential announcement of Washington Park as the site of the Obama Presidential Library. [DNAinfo/Sam Cholke]
WASHINGTON PARK — The Chicago Baptist Institute is selling its home in the landmark Chicago Orphan Asylum building — and real estate professionals are saying hotel investors want to buy it.
Real estate consultant Ebonie Caldwell said the Institute planned to drop the price to $13.5 million from $15 million on Monday to quickly sell the 118-year-old building at 5120 S. Martin Luther King Drive and an adjoining 45,000-square-foot lot.
“We’re trying to get rid of it now instead of waiting,” Caldwell said. “There’s a lot of interest.”
She said many of the interested buyers so far have wanted to convert the building into a hotel with the hopes that the Barack Obama Presidential Center will choose to locate close by in Washington Park over options in Jackson Park.
She said others are interested in just buying it in the hopes of profiting off the Obama library announcement.
“They don’t want to rent it out, they just want to hold it for a couple of years,” Caldwell said.
Representatives from the Institute, which is lead by former mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, did not return calls for comment.
Caldwell said the Institute was no longer able to afford the building because of state budget cuts and other declines in revenue.
In 2011, the Institute poured nearly $2 million into a complete rehab of the interior of the building, including 14 new furnaces and all new plumbing, wiring and windows.
“Whoever gets it, it will be one of the best investments of their life,” Caldwell said.
The building was designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, which also designed the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, and 15 buildings on the University of Chicago campus.
In the 1940s, the building was the Parkway Community House and was a gathering place for the artists and musicians in Bronzeville that lead the artistic renaissance in the city. Author James Michener participated in writing workshops at the center, Gordon Parks had shows of his photography and Langston Hughes opened his play “Sun Do Move” there.
The building was landmarked in 2008, which provides some protections from demolition and protects the historic façade of the building, which faces onto the northwestern corner of Washington Park, one of two locations where the Obama library could be built.
The Chicago Baptist Institute is selling it's landmark building and will move to a still-to-be-decided new home.
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