List Price: $1.4 million
Sale Price: $1.3 million
The Property: This two-bedroom condo on the 44th floor of the prestigious Park Tower at 800 N. Michigan Ave. was the “in-town” second home of a pair of Indiana physicians for seven years, until they traded up this year to a newer, twice-as-expensive condo three blocks north.

The Park Tower condo has north and west views—mostly unobstructed, given its high floor—and 2,000 square feet of living space. It’s fitted out with crown moldings, granite countertops, a whole-house sound system, and an extra-deep whirlpool tub in the master bath.

The sellers, Fadhil and Ferial Alsikafi, bought the condo from the tower’s developer, LR Realty, in 2001 for $739,000. They then spent another $190,000 on upgrades, says Fadhil. (He is an orthopedic surgeon; his wife is an emergency-room physician, both in Terre Haute.) Fadhil says the upgrades included higher-quality doors, cabinetry, and marble floors than the developer had installed.

The pair’s three grown sons all live in Chicago. “We wanted more space to have them and our grandchildren around us,” Fadhil says. “And when we retire, whenever that is, we are going to need the room.” In 2007, they bought a $2.63 million, 3,000-square-foot condo in the nearby 900 N. Michigan tower (a.k.a. the Bloomingdale’s building), part of eight floors that are being converted from offices to condos. Along with more space, the new place has floor-to-ceiling windows—a leftover from its previous incarnation as office space—and five of them face east.

At their old place, Fadhil says, “we would sometimes look west to watch the sunset, which was nice, but now we see the sun rise over the lake, and you see so many colors when you look at that. It’s spectacular.”

When they first put the Park Tower unit on the market, says their agent, Frank Roti, “we knew we had a good nine months before [the new place] would be ready, so we listed it on the high side.” The Park condo went on the market at $1.75 million in March 2007.

This spring, with their new place at 900 N. Michigan ready and the old one unsold, the Alsikafis cut their asking price to $1.4 million. In late June, they signed a contract with a buyer (who is not yet identified in public records of the sale), and on July 11 they closed the sale.

Price Points: It’s hard to say definitively because there haven’t been many sales, but it appears that per-square-foot prices for condos in the middle floors of the Park Tower are dropping a bit. (I’ve excluded sales on the uppermost floors, because they command a premium even above the premium prices in this building.)

The Alsikafis’ sale is one of only two so far this year; theirs sold at $650 per square foot, and the other at $727. The two 2007 sales were at $892 and $992. In 2006, the range was from $633 to $1,080.

Listing Agent: Frank Roti of Itor Real Estate Services, 312-787-0666