Hawthorne Race Course draws $90M bid, below its land-only appraisal

A Delaware shell company called Allimac 2023 won the bankruptcy auction for Hawthorne Race Course on July 14 at $90 million, taking one of Cook County’s largest contiguous development sites for less than what an appraiser valued the dirt at alone eleven months earlier. No one else bid.

Why it matters

Assembling 119 acres in one piece inside Cook County is effectively impossible through the private market. Parcels that size come apart into dozens of owners, decades of easements and a holdout who prices the whole deal. Bankruptcy is the mechanism that delivers it whole, title cleaned, on a court calendar, and that is the entry point developers should be watching, not the racing story.

The pricing is the part worth studying. Woodland Valuation Services appraised the land alone at roughly $95 million as of August 2025, excluding improvements, the off-track betting parlors and gaming licenses. The winning bid came in under that, and it came in as the stalking horse by default: when the deadline passed with no competing offer, the floor became the ceiling. A site of this scale clearing below its land appraisal, with zero competitive tension, is a real datapoint on what large-format Cook County land actually trades for when a seller has no time.

The downside case is straightforward. A distressed auction with one bidder is not a market clearing price. It is evidence that this site priced here, under a bankruptcy clock, not that the next one will.

The numbers

Hawthorne’s operator filed Chapter 11 on February 27, 2026 in the Northern District of Illinois, Case No. 26-03505, before Judge Timothy A. Barnes, reporting $50 million to $100 million in assets against $100 million to $500 million in liabilities. Debtors include Carey Heirs Properties, Suburban Downs and Post Time Catering. Signature Bank is owed roughly $51.6 million, Latto Capital $5 million on a term loan, and Churchill Downs holds a $1.5 million judgment. JDI Loans provided $16 million in debtor-in-possession financing at roughly 13% on a 120-day term, a clock that explains the calendar.

The property sits at 3501 South Laramie Avenue in Stickney, about 10 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.

What’s next

The sale objection deadline is July 17 and Judge Barnes takes the sale up at a July 20 hearing. Allimac has disclosed nothing about its ownership or its plans, and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association has said it has no indication the buyer intends anything but to clear the track. Watch the sale order for any use restrictions, then watch Stickney and Cicero zoning, an entitlement on a site this large is where the actual value gets created. More at the Chicago hub.