Why would two condominiums inside the same 28-unit building carry list and sale prices more than $2.5 million apart?
That is the question sitting inside The Hayden at 1109 West Washington Boulevard right now. Unit 6D recently closed at $2,440,000. Unit PH8D, a five-bedroom penthouse in the same building, is on the market for $4,995,000. Same address, same doorman, same nine floors of Booth Hansen-designed industrial glass. More than double the price.
If you are comparing West Loop to Gold Coast or Streeterville for a purchase above $1.5 million, that spread is the detail worth understanding before you look at another listing. It is not a fluke of one unusual penthouse. It is a symptom of something the median sale price for West Loop, hovering around $495,000 to $530,000 in early 2026 according to Redfin's neighborhood data, will never show you: a single development company has spent the last decade building the ceiling for the entire luxury tier, one project at a time, and each project has used the last one's record sale as the reason to charge more for the next.
The building that started the ladder
The Hayden was Sulo Development's first major luxury swing in the neighborhood. Completed in 2019 and designed by Booth Hansen Architects, it topped out at roughly $4 million per unit when it launched in 2017. Twenty-eight residences, four to a floor, three and four bedroom layouts running 3,200 to 5,100 square feet, private elevator entry into most units. At the time, that was a genuinely large bet on what a West Loop buyer would pay for size and privacy over amenities.
The bet worked well enough that Sulo came back with something bigger.
Embry, and the record that changed the math
Embry, at 19 North May Street, was originally planned at a smaller scale and ended up doubling to 73 units across 18 stories. Its penthouse sold for $7.6 million, according to reporting from The Real Deal, which noted the sale set the current record for any condominium west of the Kennedy Expressway. In the five years before that sale, 18 Chicago condos had closed above $7 million. Seventeen were east of Clark Street, within blocks of the lake. Embry's penthouse was the lone outlier on the west side of downtown.
That single sale did two things. It proved that West Loop buyers would pay Gold Coast and Streeterville money for the right unit. And it gave Sulo a number to beat.
Fulton Bond is built to beat it
Fulton Bond, a 149-unit, two-tower project at 1325 West Fulton Street, is Sulo's next move, and the numbers are explicit about the target. A sales agent told Crain's Chicago Business that two penthouses in the development will each price above the $7.6 million Embry record. The project, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox with interiors by MAWD, opened its sales gallery in late February 2026 following city approval in early 2025. Sulo bought the 1.7-acre site at Fulton and Elizabeth for $29.9 million in October 2024. Groundbreaking had been targeted for August 2026, with the two towers, one 23 stories with 60 units and one 33 stories with 89 units, guided toward a 2028 delivery. Base pricing starts around $1.55 million, with the top of the building built specifically to clear the bar Embry set.
Read that sequence in order and the pattern is not subtle. The Hayden proved buyers wanted large, private units at $4 million. Embry proved they would pay $7.6 million for the right one. Fulton Bond is priced from the start to make $7.6 million look like the entry point for a penthouse, not the ceiling.
Why this is a mechanism, not a coincidence
This matters for anyone comparing neighborhoods because it changes what a "West Loop luxury price" actually represents. In a market where one developer builds the three most-watched projects in sequence, the top of the price range is not a pure reflection of buyer demand meeting available land. It is also a marketing tool. Each project's record sale becomes evidence in the next project's pitch deck. A broker who has sold in multiple Sulo buildings put it plainly in local coverage of Fulton Bond: the earlier projects held their value because they were executed well, and that track record is exactly what makes buyers willing to pay more for the next one before it is even built.
That is a different story than "the neighborhood is hot." It is closer to a company managing its own comps across a decade of projects, each one using the last as proof of concept.
What it means if you already own, or are about to buy, in an earlier Sulo building
If you own at The Hayden, Fulton Bond's arrival is good and complicated news at the same time. Good, because a $7.6 million-plus penthouse sale two blocks away resets the top of the range for everything nearby, including your building. Complicated, because Fulton Bond will also deliver roughly 40,000 square feet of amenities, a pool deck, a golf simulator, and full-floor penthouse customization that a 2019 boutique building without a resident amenity floor cannot match unit for unit. A newer, better-amenitized building setting a higher record does not automatically lift every comparable unit in an older one. It depends on what a buyer is actually choosing between: raw square footage and privacy at The Hayden, or resort-style amenities and a longer commitment to a building that will not deliver until 2028.
That is also why price per square foot, the number most portals lead with, breaks down at this tier. West Loop's broader median sits near $408 to $421 per square foot as of spring 2026. The Hayden's own closed sales, spanning $1.6 million to $4.7 million across units that vary from 3,200 to 5,100 square feet, will not average into a single meaningful number. A five-bedroom duplex penthouse and a three-bedroom lower floor unit are not the same product, even inside the same address. Sellers pricing a Hayden unit, and buyers evaluating one against new construction at Fulton Bond, need building-specific comps and floor-by-floor context, not a neighborhood average.
Frequently asked questions
Does Fulton Bond's pricing mean resale units at The Hayden or Embry are now underpriced? Not automatically. Fulton Bond's higher ceiling reflects new construction with substantially more building amenities and a later completion date. It can support higher asking prices at comparable existing buildings, but a seller still needs a unit-specific comparison rather than a blanket assumption that older Sulo buildings will rise in lockstep.
When will Fulton Bond actually be available to move into? Groundbreaking had been targeted for August 2026, with delivery guided toward 2028. Buyers considering a resale unit at The Hayden or Embry today are choosing a home available now against a project that will not be livable for roughly two more years.
Is the $7.6 million Embry sale representative of what most West Loop buyers pay? No. It is the ceiling, not the median. West Loop's broader condo market carries a median sale price closer to $500,000 as of early 2026. The Sulo sequence described here applies specifically to the ultra-luxury tier above roughly $1.5 million, a small slice of total neighborhood transactions but an outsized influence on how that top tier gets priced.
If you are weighing a purchase at this level, whether that means an existing unit at The Hayden, a resale at Embry, or getting in early at Fulton Bond, the numbers above are the starting point for a real conversation, not the end of one. RM Luxury Group works inside these exact buildings and can walk through what a specific floor, line, or penthouse configuration is actually worth against this backdrop. Request a private consultation to talk through your options before your next showing.
