Greystone-style building facing Wrigley Field listed for $5.9M

A three-story Greystone-style building on North Sheffield Avenue in Lakeview that is one of the only multifamily buildings facing the right-field wall of Wrigley Field not already in the hands of the owners of the Chicago Cubs is on the market for $5.9 million.

The four-unit building historically has been known for the large billboard on its roof that for decades was easily spotted by fans in the ballpark and TV viewers.

After the Ricketts family bought the Cubs in 2009, they went on a buying spree, acquiring most of the buildings beyond the ballpark’s left-field and right-field walls, particularly those with rooftop seating. However, along the right-field wall, two holdout properties that historically had views into the ballpark, at 3627 and 3631 N. Sheffield, continue to be owned by other entities.

Those two buildings’ views changed after 2013, when the Cubs erected a large video screen with a Budweiser sign above the right-field bleachers, thus blocking the views into the ballpark from the roofs of the buildings at 3627 and 3631 N. Sheffield. Even so, the building at 3627 N. Sheffield has bleachers atop it.

Now, the Greystone-style building at 3631 N. Sheffield is on the market for the first time in more than a century, according to its listing agent, Kelly Angelopoulos of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty. For decades, the building was known not for rooftop seating but for a large Torco sign on its roof that first was placed on its roof in 1941. In recent years, other advertisers have placed their messages on the building’s rooftop billboard.

Angelopoulos told Elite Street that she “can’t speak” to whether a buyer could receive city permission to construct bleachers on the roof of 3631 N. Sheffield that would be perched high enough to see over the top of the Budweiser sign.

Built about 1900, the 4,869-square-foot building has 12 bedrooms, six bathrooms, a marble entry foyer, millwork, a handcrafted wooden staircase with a skylight, and a rear wood porch. Outside on the 30-foot-wide property is a two-car garage off the alley.

Its owner, Gregory Ozog, bought the building in 2000 for $720,000. He first listed it in June for $8.3 million, but struck in his attempt to sell it at that price. He cut his asking price to $7.5 million in July, and to $7 million in August. Ozog then reduced the building’s price further on Sept. 23, to $5.9 million.

The building had a $47,657 property tax bill in the 2020 tax year. However, the Cook County Assessor assigns the building a market value of $1.68 million, which is about 29 percent of its asking price. So, a buyer at the asking price would be expected to see the building’s property taxes triple.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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