Waldorf-Astoria condo in Chicago’s Gold Coast sells for $9.4 million

The sale price is the tenth-highest anyone has paid for a home in the Chicago area so far this year. In 2021, the No. 10 purchase price was a little under $8.1 million. That was a sale at the re-purposed Tribune Tower that remains the highest recorded price in that Michigan Avenue building.

So far this year, of the 15 highest-priced home sales, 10 are downtown condos. There have been 120 homes sold for $4 million or more in the Chicago area, well ahead of the pace of 2021, which ended with 101 sales.

The luxury market has not been impacted by the interest rate increases that have stifled the mainstream market. That’s predictable, as buyers at this level typically don’t need a mortgage.

Scott Saldana is president of SKTY Trading, a market-maker based in Chicago that he founded in 2001. The couple bought the condominium in 2010 for a little under $6.3 million.

The condo has views in four directions and terraces on three sides. When it  went up for sale last year, the listing agent, Susan Miner of Premier Relocation, told Crain’s the layout of the main rooms “is open, and with the 12-foot ceilings and big picture windows, it feels voluminous in there.”

Photos in the listing show beamed ceilings and wide-plank hardwood floors in the main rooms. The kitchen has glossy wood cabinetry, marble countertops and four wine refrigerators. In the photos, all the rooms are unfurnished, indicating the owners had already moved out, but public records do not yet indicate the Saldanas buying another home in Cook or Lake counties.

The condo’s buyers, who are not yet identified in public records, were represented by Julie Harron of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty.

Earlier this month, Citadel chief Ken Griffin sold a full-floor unit, on the 37th floor in the same building, for about $10.2 million. In 2015 Griffin sold his 46th-floor unit at the Waldorf for $16 million.