Horizon Realty Group

Horizon Realty Group is a Chicago-based real estate owner, developer and property management company operating apartment communities across the city and its northern suburbs. The firm holds and manages its own portfolio rather than developing purely for sale, which means it underwrites buildings it will still own once the contractor leaves the site. Horizon is the owner-developer behind The Legacy, a residential tower in downtown Evanston that broke ground in April 2026 with Pappageorge Haymes as design architect, Myefski Architects as architect of record and Valenti as contractor. Evanston’s position at the north end of the CTA Purple Line, next to Northwestern University, makes it one of the few North Shore submarkets where dense rental development pencils.

Danny Michael was selling real estate around Ravenswood in the late 1970s when he bought the building at 1946 West Lawrence Avenue in 1984. That building is still the company’s headquarters, and the date is the one the firm gives as its start.

Four decades on, the portfolio runs to 26 rental properties, eight commercial properties and more than 2,500 residential units. It remains family-owned and operated.

The specialism is vintage Chicago. Horizon buys older apartment buildings, the kind with the original detail still intact, and renovates them to carry modern amenities without stripping out what made them worth keeping, alongside a smaller number of newer boutique units. Named buildings include Park Michigan in the South Loop, The Bryn at 5600 Sheridan, Sheridan Tower and Buena Terrace, and the geography concentrates in Edgewater, Uptown, Rogers Park, Lakeview and Lincoln Park.

Not everything is apartments. The company manages eight commercial and retail properties, runs a brokerage arm for buyers, and operates The Merion, an independent senior living community in Evanston, a building type with a different regulatory and operational profile from conventional multifamily.

Leadership is second generation and long-tenured. Jeff Michael, chief operating officer, took a law degree from the University of Illinois in 1997 and oversees acquisitions and renovation. David Sherman joined as vice president of operations in 2014 after more than 28 years in property operations.

The structural point for anyone working with Horizon is that it holds what it builds. A firm managing its own portfolio rather than developing for sale is still the owner when the warranty period ends, and that tends to show up in specification decisions long before it shows up in a maintenance budget.