The Ricketts Family Buys Another Rooftop Building

As a result of the owners of Down The Line Rooftop at 3625 N. Sheffield passing away and transferring ownership to a trust, Hickory Street Capital (the Ricketts family group that owns properties in the Wrigley Field area apart from the ballpark) is buying that building and rooftop club outright, according to Danny Ecker at Chicago Business:

At issue with 3625 Sheffield was a clause in the Ricketts family's contract with other property investors giving Hickory Street Capital a right of first refusal to buy the building if its majority ownership stake changed hands.

According to the complaint, that occurred when the co-owners of the property—the living trusts of James and Camelia Petrozzini, who both died in 2014—transferred their ownership stakes to living trusts.

An attorney for the Petrozzini trusts had argued that the outright purchase of the building was not subject to the right of first refusal clause under terms of the deal.

Hickory Street Capital is expected to close on the property purchase sometime in January, officials from both parties said.

The article goes on to say that the Ricketts family has spent $21.7 million since 2015 in acquiring 11 rooftop clubs that line Waveland and Sheffield Avenues opposite the Wrigley Field bleachers. They are now all marketed as one group at WrigleyRooftops.com, a sign you likely saw during TV coverage of the playoffs on those rooftop buildings.

There is a diagram at the Chicago Business article showing which rooftops are owned by Hickory Street Capital and which aren’t. As of now:

The other rooftop business properties not owned by the Ricketts family are Wrigley View rooftop at 1050 W. Waveland Ave., Murphy's Bleachers rooftop at 3649 N. Sheffield Ave. and the Sports Corner rooftop at 3609 N. Sheffield Ave.

However, Ecker notes that the Sports Corner rooftop has entered into a marketing partnership with Hickory Street Capital and you can buy tickets for that club at the WrigleyRooftops.com site, and the newly-acquired Down The Line Rooftop should also join that site for the 2017 season.

I have heard that the Wrigley View folks have been approached numerous times by the Cubs and aren’t interested in selling.

The other buildings shown in white on the diagram are, from left to right on Waveland:

• Engine Company 78 firehouse
• 1040-42 W. Waveland. This building has no rooftop club (and probably never will, as the owner of that building isn’t interested in building such a club nor is interested in selling the building)
• The house at 3701 N. Kenmore (and a couple of houses to its north). As of late in the 2016 baseball season, that house had an ad on its roof promoting Joe Maddon’s T-shirts at KorkedBaseball.com.

And, the building shown on that diagram in white on Sheffield is the one with the billboard on it.

The Ricketts family, through Hickory Street Capital, now owns 11 of the 16 rooftop clubs surrounding Wrigley Field.