Feb. 19--Jay Michael was a Chicago real estate developer whose specialties included apartments with scaled-down square footage but ramped-up amenities.
Michael, 34, died of complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma Jan. 8 at his home, said his brother, Mark. A resident of the Near North Side, he was diagnosed with the disease about a year ago, his brother said.
Born and raised in Skokie, Michael graduated from Niles North High School and got a degree from Richmond University in London.
After college, Michael stayed in London and pursued a career in broadcasting, working as an intern for CNBC Europe. After his father died in 2003, Michael returned home to be with his family.
While assisting his mother in selling her home, Michael found himself drawn to real estate. He teamed up with Alex Samoylovich, a childhood friend, to begin buying and flipping houses. They also co-founded the real estate brokerage Estate Property Group.
The duo soon began developing multifamily housing on the North Side. They set up a subsidiary focused on distressed real estate called Cedar Street Co. And with Michael as Cedar Street's chief creative officer, they soon created their Flats Chicago brand for previously vacant or uninhabitable buildings in the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods that they overhauled.
When renovated, the buildings contained Michael's brainchild: micro-apartments at middle-market rents aimed at young professionals. The buildings also offered modern amenities such as pools, roof decks, sports clubs, libraries and lounges.
"The small sizes allow us to offer better spaces within a certain price point," Michael told the Tribune in October. "People can enjoy the amenities they would find in a new building, but they can afford to live on their own without roommates."
By late 2014, Michael and Samoylovich's Flats brand covered eight rehabbed buildings in Uptown and Edgewater, including the massive Lawrence House building at 1020 W. Lawrence Ave.
"Not to be arrogant, but I think to some degree, what I think I try to design is a way to live," Michael told the Tribune in 2014. "We'll do something different ... really making more of these really small spaces and making them really relevant today and not dilapidated slums. First of all, I don't think gentrification is a bad thing.
"We didn't come to Uptown and do anything to Uptown except to try to add some value to the buildings we acquired."
As Cedar Street continued rehabbing buildings, some affordable-housing advocates and community groups took aim at Michael and Samoylovich, charging them with displacing tenants of the buildings that they had been renovating. Ultimately, Cedar Street struck a deal with Chicago's Low-Income Housing Trust Fund to offer more than four dozen subsidized units to Chicagoans earning no more than $15,200 a year.
"It's the right thing to do," Michael told the Tribune in 2014.
In 2014, Bravo featured Michael on a Bravo reality show, "100 Days of Summer," about the lives of six Chicago friends. Michael viewed his role on the program as a way to raise Flats' visibility.
Michael also was on the board of Chicago-based RefugeeOne, whose gala he co-chaired in April. And he was an investor in Chicago-based Flowers for Dreams, an online flower-delivery startup.
"Jay cared so much about the details of our business," said Flowers for Dreams CEO Steven Dyme. "He was very formative in the re-creating of our business as a brand. He understood exactly our business and what we wanted to achieve, and he was really able to draw in broad strokes while also focusing on the finer details."
Survivors also include his mother, Frances; and another brother, Steven.
Services were held.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
