Sam Zell Betting On Commercial Chicago Real Estate

Sam Zell, owner of the Chicago Tribune and Equity Office Properties, figures that commercial real estate will turn before jobs in the coming years.  Chicago real estate daily reports Zell saying “U.S. commercial real estate market likely will turn around before the economy regains the 7.25 million jobs lost over the recession.”

“It will take us three to four years to get us back those 7 million jobs,”  Sam Zell told an audience attending a real estate forum sponsored by the Wharton School, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania. In Zell’s viewpoint, commercial real estate will not have to wait as long because of constrained supply.

Zell was born in Chicago in 1941 to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. Shortly after moving from Seattle to Chicago, Zell’s father Bernard changed the family name from Zielonka to Zell. He received his Bachelors degree from the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He also received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School.

Zell recently bought the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, newspapers struggling with internet marketing competition.  Part of that transaction included the Chicago Cubs who were recently bought by the Ricketts family who plan to take the struggling baseball franchise into the 21st century.