About

By Bob Mengel

William Senn with tongue firmly on cheek, says that if his current career doesn’t pan out he can always fall back on his UIC degree. Finally, someone who actually listened to his parents’ practical advice.

Except that Bill Senne studied theater in school, and his current career in real estate is his answer to the question, “Do I really want to be a starving artist?”

It’s not likely that his career as principal of Property Consultants, the flourishing sales and development company that has done much to bring a revitalized Bucktown into being, will flounder anytime soon. And the reason, he says, is his early theater training.

“Sales,” says Senne, a founding member of Trap Door Theater “is improv at its best.”

If recent figures are any indication, his company would rank among the top talents at Second City. In 1996, his Bucktown properties, including ClockTower Lofts, Electric Company Lofts, Electric Company Lofts and Urban Garden Townhomes, sold out prior to completion of construction and resulted in $27 million in sales. The same year his Wicker Park projects, Robey Square and CityView Lofts, accounted for some $9 million.

Such sales figures would be impressive from a 40-year veteran of real estate, but at 33, Senne has only been in the business about 12 years. He bought his first building in Logan Square when he was 21, and got his real estate sales license to facilitate future speculative ventures. He was drawn to the area for its classic greystone architecture and because, in 1985, it allowed him “to do something different,” a well honed desire from performance days. But the lack of a dominant architectural style, which would allow him the ability to create his own style, is what drew him to Bucktown, and it was there that his desire to do something different blossomed.

“What I like about Bucktown is that it has always been a neighborhood,” says Senne. “Growing up on the Northwest Side, that sort of thing has always been appealing to me.”

Bill’s father, who still lives on the Northwest Side with Bill’s mother, drove a Butternut Bread truck for 40 years and imbued his son with a certain energy and vitality as well as devotion to the city of Chicago. “Some day,” says Bill, who will be married three years in October, “I’d like to raise my children the same way I was raised – in an eclectic environment, rich in ethnicity, diverse in culture, and abundant in wonderful, safe, attractive neighborhoods.”

It sounds like all the attributes that are attracting myriad buyers to Bucktown. In fact, the residential enclave along Milwaukee Ave., roughly bounded by Armitage, Wabansia and Western, is now trademarked Bucktown USA, and encompasses the array of projects Property Consultants has worked on. Of the seven recent and current residential projects in the area, Property Consultants is largely responsible for six of them; including Electric Company Lofts, Compass Point, Clock Tower Lofts, Pinnacle Lofts, the ward-winning Urban Gardens Townhomes, and the most recent, Bucktown Ironwerks Lifts. “One of the many keys to Property Consultants’ success is our use of first-rate consultants who match the specific project on the drawing boards,” Senne says. “We believe the right architects, designers and construction crews become an integral part of the overall planning and fulfillment of each property. The right layout and interior often lead to astonishing sales results.” As an example, he cites his Pinnacle Lofts, where 50 percent of the units sold in the first three days of opening the models, and 100 percent before the project’s completion.

Though Bucktown and Wicker Park have abundant cultural amenities, Senne recognized that in order to round out the residential area and bring convenient resources to the new neighbors he would have to build it himself. His Senco Plaza, 1704 N. Milwaukee, is a retail center anchored by a Blockbuster Entertainment Center and including an Always Open convenience store, Sunset Restaurant, a clinic of Mercy Hospital and a dry cleaner.

“I’ve lived in the neighborhood for six and a half years, so I know what it needs,” he says.”Before there was no place to run out at midnight for a gallon of milk.”

As though that might sound too wholesome, too homogenous – like many popular urban neighborhoods that resemble little more than a slice of suburbia – he also recognizes the availability of a taco 24 hours a day as a good example of what makes the neighborhood work. “I don’t ever see Bucktown or Wicker Park as a homogenous community. It will always have the diversity that gives a neighborhood its desirability.”

A similar project, Robey Station, 1520 N. Damen was developed to complement the lifestyle offered by Senne’s Wicker Park developments. Here, the Coconuts anchor tenant can be seen as another testament to Senne’s commitment to the neighborhoods and his expertises in salesmanship.

“When you add about 250 homes in the neighborhood you get a pretty good idea of the kind of money these people have to spend,” he says. “Still, it was tough trying to convince national retailers to make a commitment to the area.”

That kind of commitment, along with an ability to communicate a neighborhood vision into hard sales figures are characteristics that have always contributed to the Property Consultants success. Acting as sales agents for the Fifield Companies, Property Consultants took on the task of marketing the Gotham Lofts, 400 S. Clinton, the initial portion of the former Western Electric manufacturing complex to be redeveloped for residential use. Senne was able to cultivate an identity for the project that appealed to buyers of the 187 units, and pave the way for nearly 500 additional units to be developed by MCZ Development.

In Keeping with his early theater training, where he learned that you have to be everywhere, do everything and “always trying something new,” Senne has expanded Property Consultants’ influence to encompass all aspects of urban real estate: from residential to commercial, brokerage to development, rehab to new construction. His staff of 40 includes 24 licensed real estate professionals who cover the city and its diverse neighborhoods. All that’s left to be seen is where he might go, or what he might do next.

Had he stayed on the more conventional track of many a theater major he might be waiting tables. He might, if this real estate career doesn’t pan out, put in an application at Jane’s, 1655 W. Cortland, a runaway success since its opening four and a half years ago; or at the new Sunset, 1520 N. Damen, sure to follow the same path. And he might get hired.

If he didn’t already own them.