Wrigley Field Rooftop Building Sold in Bankruptcy Auction

January 27, 2012

By: John Clark

The owner of a rooftop business just outside of Chicago’s Wrigley Field purchased a nearby property with more rooftop seating for a reported sum of $4.8 million at a bankruptcy auction this week.

A Chicago bankruptcy judge reportedly approved the sale of a building on Sheffield Avenue that is home to the Lakeview Baseball Club, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Lakeview Baseball Club, which was purchased by the owner of Brixen Ivy, is one of several former apartment buildings the skirt the edges of the Chicago Cubs’ home fields’ outfield walls.

The buildings overlooking Wrigley Field have become a part of the stadium’s lore, as they offer seating atop their roofs for people who cannot get into the field but would rather view the action from just outside the stadium.

And, to be fair, the rooftops have become an attraction of their own, with large groups paying hundreds of dollars each game to watch the game from a decidedly distant vantage point.

Because of the lucrative nature of the Wrigley Field rooftop businesses, it’s no surprise that Mark Schlenker, owner of Brixen Ivy, another rooftop venue, swept into the bankruptcy auction and picked up the property for several million dollars.

The new buyer’s purchase was labeled a "credit bid" because he had affiliated himself with another entity that had acquired the claims of a bank and two other creditors against the owners of the Lakeview Baseball Club.

In bankruptcy auctions, secured creditors are allowed to bid the amount of their debt—in this case, the debt was roughly $4.2 million—as a so-called credit bid, but they must then compete with cash bidders.

In the absence of cash bidders here, Schlenker’s own company, the aptly named Rooftop Acquisition LLC, added $600 in cash to up the bid to its final level. Of course, while the buyer is likely pleased with his purchase, the Wrigley rooftop business is not without its risks.

The owners of the Lakeview Baseball Club, for example, had to face a foreclosure suit in 2010 after falling behind by almost $3 million on their mortgage payments. In order to prevent the foreclosure, the owners filed for bankruptcy last August.