Gutting a 1920s high-rise can be a little like plunging your hand into an elaborate wedding cake. The architectural detail for which the era is celebrated gets destroyed if developers don’t strive to preserve it.

RDM Development was well aware of this fact when it bought 1400 Lake Shore Drive, a 22-story Gold Coast tower with numerous details worth preserving. Intricate metal grilles, hand-painted ceilings, walnut paneling, limestone floors and chandeliers are among the features that landed the building’s lobby on the National Register of Historic Places. Its limestone façade is typical of the Gold Coast, a nationally landmarked district. (more…)

For a high-rise to be successful, it must have three elements in harmony: location, architecture and layout.

So says Lucien Lagrange, the French-born architect with a range of high-profile Chicago buildings to his credit. For his latest design, Ten East Delaware, he aims to combine Gold Coast cache, neoclassical architecture and floor plans that respond to buyers’ lifestyles.

The 35-story high-rise underway at 10 E. Delaware Place has a sandy-colored French limestone facade with a pre-cast cornice, a style that evokes Chicago architecture of the 1920s. The detailing extends to the exterior of the ground-level garage.

"A building has to touch the ground in a very graceful way, so as you come down to ground, there’s a lot of detail," he says. "You want to design a building so it doesn’t hit the ground – it sits on the ground." (more…)

If you’re about to drop half a million dollars on a new condo, chances are you’re hoping for a room with a view.

Prospective homebuyers shopping the market in River North have plenty of high-end options, but not many of them have the kinds of sweeping views buyers tend to want downtown. The neighborhood’s stock of older loft buildings is mostly mid-rise, and on many blocks, zoning has capped new buildings around 14 stories. Superior 110, a glass-and-steel tower by JFJ Development Co. underway at the northwest corner of Superior and Clark streets, is an exception, clocking in at 27 stories.

The mechanics of Chicago’s zoning ordinance allowed JFJ to build tall on the former site of a police station. Because the buyer of the northern piece of the site constructed a building of just four stories, JFJ essentially was able to borrow the allowed height (or “floor area ratio”) not used by the other project. (more…)

Remnants of the grimy, industrial district that was the West Loop are increasingly hard to find in some parts of the neighborhood, although forklifts still rumble back and forth in the old Fulton Market, and meat vendors hangs on alongside the burgeoning crop of trendy restaurants and galleries. These days, upscale condos abound – the fruits of a trend that began roughly a decade ago.

"At that time there were a lot of one- and two-bedroom units a little bit smaller in size," says Geoffrey Ruttenberg, CEO of The Brixton Group, a developer of residential real estate. "And most developers were hedging their bets because the area was still in transition." What the West Loop market needs now, according to Ruttenberg, is move-up properties for those early buyers. (more…)

Revisiting a childhood haunt can be heartrending – parks get paved over, houses torn down. But sometimes the ravages of time hold off, as they did recently for Tony Torres, president of Lyonhart Group, a residential developer. Torres grew up in Lake View, at Sheffield and Waveland avenues.

He remembers riding his bike to Wrigley Field to glide up and down the ramps and walking with his mother to church at St. Mary of the Lake, at Buena and Sheridan. On their route, they would pass a 1920s brick apartment building in the 3800 block of North Sheffield Avenue.

That was more than 40 years ago. Today, Torres owns the building, (more…)

It's not uncommon for developers of downtown condo high-rises to offer plush "lifestyle" amenities such as spas, massage rooms and upscale restaurants. But to say that Canyon Ranch Living - Chicago, a 67-story tower planned for 680 N. Rush St., is part of the "lifestyle concept" is like saying that Beethoven wrote some symphonies.

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Park Boulevard rebuilds a neighborhood on former CHA land

The drive south along State Street into the Bronzeville neighborhood used to mean venturing past the striking, modern buildings of the Illinois Institute of Technology toward dilapidated public housing high-rises, which lined State from 35th to 55th streets.

Now, a welcoming beacon stands at the corner of 35th and State: a four-story mixed-use building topped by a tower with a peaked roof. The banner draped across it proclaims the arrival of Park Boulevard, a development of more than 1,300 new-construction homes. About 880 of the new housing units will be built on the 34-acre site where the Chicago Housing Authority's Stateway Gardens public housing complex once stood, with the rest scattered throughout surrounding neighborhoods. (more…)

Buyer response inspires new townhomes, live-work space at Westhaven Park

The wisest way to develop housing is to give people what they want, not tell them what they want, says Pam Gecan, marketing manager for AMS Realty. AMS is the exclusive marketing agent for Westhaven Park, a massive new residential community on the Near West Side.

That approach is easier to execute at a development like Westhaven, which has more than 760 residences and multiple phases. The developers can sculpt the homes in later phases around the reactions of buyers in earlier phases, Gecan says. (more…)

Trump brand, Skidmore design raise giant profile on prominent river perch

An awed "whoa" was Dana Sindha's gut reaction to Trump International Hotel & Tower, under construction at 401 N. Wabash Ave. in River North. The 27-year-old medical student was visiting from her home in Ohio for the first time in five years. The last time she was here, the squat, metallic Sun-Times building blighted this prominent spot on the Chicago River. "This looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. I love the blue," she said quickly, the sharp breeze off the river hustling her along. (more…)

Kargil hopes to make a splash with South Loop high-rise's spa amenities  

Another frenetic day at the office is finally over. Your head aches and you long to unwind. It's time to go home and plunge into your warm Turkish bath then chill out under your high-tech shower, programmed to simulate the roar of a thunderstorm. (more…)