The deal, valued at $1 billion according to Crain’s Chicago Business, means the Pissios family of Chicago will no longer control the studio space they founded in 2011 with the aid of millions of dollars in state grants.
The release does not mention any role for Cinespace President and CEO Alex Pissios, whose run as the head of Cinespace’s Chicago operation has seen the company expand into the city’s premier studio space and purportedly the largest film campus east of California.
As a Cinespace executive, Pissios also wore a wire on former Teamsters boss John Coli Sr., who pleaded guilty to extorting more than $300,000 from the company to maintain labor peace at the studio.
State grants heavily financed Cinespace’s expansion into Chicago under Pissios’ uncle, Nick Mirkopoulos, who founded Cinespace in Toronto in the 1980s.
During the waning days of Gov.
Despite his legal woes and the attention from Coli’s indictment, Pissios has remained a player in Chicago real estate.
The state logged 22,600 new cases of the deadly virus over the past week.
Bradley Rukstales was the first person from Illinois to be charged in the breach, and in August he became the first Illinois resident to plead guilty to his role in the riot.
During this trip, I intend to write dispatches from Ghana and other African nations.