A stretch of 10 acres is up for grabs downtown, setting up the potential for one or more developers to redraw a big swath of the Near North Side.

In a rare offering of urban land that could be redeveloped with more than 5 million square feet of buildings, Moody Bible Institute is looking to unload a large portion of its downtown campus.

The evangelical Christian school, whose property spans a series of blocks between LaSalle Street and the CTA tracks north of Chicago Avenue, has hired investment sales firm HFF to sell a handful of "non-core" large properties it owns next to its main campus to help fund the school's new strategic growth plan.

Pricing is unclear for the parcels, west of LaSalle along Wells and Franklin streets. But HFF, which recently merged with Chicago-based real estate services giant Jones Lang LaSalle, is framing the property in a marketing flyer as an opportunity to transform underutilized property as the city's central core adds population, jobs and wealth.

It's the latest move by a longtime landowner to cash out while the economy is strong, interest rates are relatively low and development is rampant in a central business district that has drastically expanded since the recession.

Recent supply booms of apartments, offices and hotels downtown have brought new residents and jobs to the city, driving up property values in most parts of the city's core past their pre-recession highs.

That backdrop sets up a lucrative opportunity for Moody, which announced earlier this month it would begin selling some of its real estate assets to fuel its 2030 growth plan, a vision to double the ministry training school's impact over the next decade. That strategy involves "campus planning for future infrastructure needs, best-in-class technologies, and the investments necessary to grow our educational, broadcasting and publishing impact," Moody President Dr. Mark Jobe wrote in a July 18 note on the school's website.

Moody, which has operated on the Near North Side for more than 130 years and reported more than 2,000 undergraduate and seminary students during the 2017-2018 school year, also recently put three of its AM radio stations up for sale as it focuses on its FM and digital presence.

The school needs to retain 1.25 million square feet of floor area for its campus, according to the HFF flyer. But it can give up some of its unused density allowed by the zoning for its primary buildings so that larger developments can be built on the sites for sale. With a potential for a developer to purchase an extra density allowance, the site for sale could accommodate up to 5.3 million square feet of buildings, the flyer said.

“Our vision for Moody Bible Institute as the most influential global hub for the gospel and our compelling mission to double our worldwide impact by 2030 requires substantial investments of time, talent and treasure," Moody said in a statement. "The sale of a portion of our non-core campus real estate holdings will generate necessary proceeds to enable us to make strategic investments to help achieve our ministry growth plans for 2030.



"The continuously changing landscape and digitization of higher education, broadcast media, and publishing serve as catalysts for new and innovative ways to operate our ministries. These trends also create an opportunity for us to evaluate our future land needs as we reimagine our 21st-century urban campus footprint.”

HFF is playing up all sorts of potential uses for the available land, which today includes surface parking lots, several low-slung buildings and a large vacant lot next to Walter Payton College Prep. The properties, which could be sold together or in pieces, are within walking distance to shopping on the Magnificent Mile, River North nightlife and a series of CTA train stations.

The land is sandwiched between the highly affluent Gold Coast to the east and the Chicago Housing Authority's former Cabrini-Green development to the west, where a series of new residential and retail developments have gradually reformed the notorious housing project site. To the north of the Moody's land, Canadian developer Onni Group is leading a 1,500-unit redevelopment of the Atrium Village apartment complex.

Other sprawling North Side sites have recently been approved by the city to be redeveloped into mixed-use megaprojects. Those include 30 acres of land owned by Tribune Media, which is poised to be developed into an 8.5 million square-foot development dubbed "the River District," as well as a 55-acre stretch further north along the Chicago River where developer Sterling Bay plans to develop its 14.5 million-square-foot Lincoln Yards campus.

Moody, a non-profit organization, reported 2017-2018 operating revenue of $112.4 million and operating expenses of $118.2 million, according to its most recent annual report.