Although he doesn’t appear to have actually moved, television talk-show host Jerry Springer has a new landlord who has just paid $450,000 for the 91st-floor condominium Springer leases in the 100-story John Hancock Center.
For those who have spent the last few years outside the U.S., Chicago-based Springer, 54, is America’s leading practitioner of the trash-talk TV genre. He recently has made headlines for his show’s high ratings–which are topping those of Oprah Winfrey’s program in some markets–for allegations that the fights among his show’s guests might be staged, for the recent demonstrations and boycotts against his program and for Channel 5’s decision several weeks ago to quit airing his program, which was immediately picked up by Channel 32.
For the last several years, Springer has lived just three floors below the Hancock’s observatory, making him one of the highest residential dwellers on the planet. Springer’s new landlord is retired investor Marvin Gans of San Francisco, who recently bought the unit for $450,000 from socialite Harriet Brady. Gans simultaneously purchased a neighboring unit on the same floor, also apparently for investment purposes, for $640,000.
Previously, Brady had bought Springer’s Hancock unit from Chicago industrialist Jerry Ganz for $400,000 in late 1995, according to public records.
Although the terms of Springer’s lease are not known, a real-estate source indicated that a unit on the 91st floor might cost $5,000 to $6,000 a month. Rents can vary widely in the 2.8 million-square-foot Hancock Center, which has a little more than 700 condominium units, all on floors 45 through 92, and which has the highest-up residential units of any building in the world.
Neighbors in the building have included actor and comedian Chris Farley, who died last December in the 60th-floor unit he was renting, and Cook County Commissioner and candidate for Treasurer Maria Pappas, who owns a unit on the 46th floor.
Springer’s other real estate properties include an oceanfront mansion in a gated area on Bird Key in Sarasota, Fla. Springer bought that mansion in the summer of 1996 for $1.115 million.
The one-story, eight-room home has four bedrooms and requires a whopping $19,300 a year in taxes. It presently serves as the permanent home for Springer’s estranged wife, Micki, with whom he has had an on-again, off-again relationship since their separation in 1990.
When not taping his slugfest, though, Springer definitely spends time down in Sarasota, since he’s a season ticketholder for the Sarasota Red Sox minor-league baseball team. The talk-show host also still owns a home in the suburbs outside his native Cincinnati.
– Want to live near Michael Jordan?
The real estate firm Koenig & Strey is marketing a two-acre, vacant parcel on Museum Drive in the Architecture Point subdivision in Highland Park, on which a more than 6,000-square-foot, contemporary home would be built for $1.395 million. The property recently was used as a Secret Service staging area when President Clinton keynoted a fundraising event next door to Jordan’s mansion at the home of Ha-Lo Industries President Lou Weisbach.
“There is still time for a buyer to design their dream home,” said listing agent Eileen Campbell of Koenig & Strey’s Deerfield office. “We can put in an indoor pool, and plans call for a music room, an office and at least five bedrooms.”
Jordan’s 28,000-square-foot home, completed in 1994, sits on seven acres on Point Lane.
– Around the U.S.: Conan O’Brien has gotten the boot–but not from NBC, which has continued to give the late-night talk-show host all the support and encouragement he needs.
In Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, O’Brien has been bounced from the apartment he’s rented for the last two years because he was subletting a co-op in a building whose maximum term for non-owners is 24 months.
Shed no tears, however, for the $2 million-a-year funnyman, who told the New York Post he is a “salaried employee–I’m not Jay (Leno) or Dave (Letterman).” O’Brien has temporarily moved into the Apthorp Building at West 78th and Broadway, where he’s in fine company, celebrity-wise. Residents of the building include Cyndi Lauper, filmmaker and author Nora Ephron, actress Kate Nelligan and “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft.
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Have a tip about a home sale or a piece of property being put on the market that involved a well-known Chicagoan or a well-known piece of Chicago real estate? Write to Upper Bracket, c/o Chicago Tribune, Real Estate section, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill., 60611. E-mail: rgoldsbo@enteract.com
