The former owner of a Chicago television studio whose legal maneuvering resembles the plot of a Dick Wolf crime show produced on his watch paid $11 million for an office building in Fulton Market.

Alex Pissios, whose Cinespace Chicago Film Studios sold last year for more than $1 billion, plans to use the 10,000-square-foot building at 232 North Carpenter Street for a new venture focused on charity and other investments, Crain’s reported. The building is sandwiched between Google’s two offices in the only city neighborhood where leasing stayed strong throughout the pandemic.


My long-term vision is to build a family office and hire some smart people to help me manage it,” he told Crain’s. “I really love the Fulton Market area. I’m excited about being in that neighborhood.”


Pissios was thrust into the spotlight for his role as a mole for federal prosecutors in a case against a Teamsters union boss, John T. Coli Sr., who pleaded guilty to extortion in 2019. Facing a charge of bankruptcy fraud, he didn’t have much choice, the Sun-Times reported last year. He and his wife sought protection from creditors after leading a condo development near the United Center before the Great Recession erased demand.

He said he doesn’t plan to knock down the building despite strong redevelopment prospects for the property.

The seller was Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, the latest longtime Fulton Market property owner to cash in on the neighborhood since Google and McDonalds located big corporate offices there in the last six years.