The Dirt Lawyer's Blog - David Stejkowski

Friday, April 13, 2007

Howard Tullman - at it again!

I don't know Howard Tullman personally. I have, however, represented clients where he was on the other side of the deal, and some of my best clients do know him.

Great, the guy is a savvy investor and VC. That's one thing. But what I really like about the guy is what he has done for educational institutions in Chicago. GlobeSt.com reports today that Flashpoint Academy, a new school for recording, film, game development and computer animation opening this fall, has leased 58,000 sf of space at 111 W. Washington in Chicago.

I hope Tullman is as successful in this venture as he was with turning around Kendall College. I did a little work for Kendall back in the late 90s, and back then it was a very good, but somewhat sleepy, it seemed, cooking school in Evanston with, IIRC, a small liberal arts program to boot.

Tullman became the president of Kendall and found an opportunity to move the school to a location downtown. In a deal I also worked on in the late 90s, Sara Lee Corporation leased a century-old rehabbed building (a project called Riverworks) near downtown Chicago for bakery test kitchens. Early on in the lease, Sara Lee decided to move their test kitchens elsewhere. What do you do with the build-to-suit location? In a stroke of development brilliance by all parties involved (I was not, alas, part of that portion of the deal, so no credit to me at all), Kendall moved to the city and the school has gone gangbusters since.

Mr. Tullman is also a dedicated blogger. Assuming he does it himself, I don't know how he finds the time, but good for him!


About Me

David Stejkowski

I am a principal in the law firm of Stejkowski & Zaffere LLC, with offices in Chicago and in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where I have lived since 2003. I am a graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and the University of Southern California in sunny Los Angeles, and I am licensed to practice in both Illinois and California (currently inactive). My practice is limited to commercial real estate transactions, leases and related businesss matters throughout the United States, and I've had the good fortune to have closed billions of dollars of transactions in this field.
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