I took these pictures of SoNo earlier today, and I have to admit I was quite taken with the look of the building. I also couldn't help wondering how its purity will be affected by its residents' taste in window-coverings.

SoNo is at the southeast corner of Fremont and BlackHawk, in a part of Chicago's Near North neighborhood that used to be called the Halsted River Triangle. See more of my SoNo photos at Flickr.

Rate and review SoNo at NewHomeNotebook.

I always think of Chicago's River West neighborhood as Bergerville.

Architect / developer Jack Berger moved there in 1979 and has since transformed the neighborhood with his pioneering River West Lofts and a raft of new modernist buildings.

The largest of those new buildings is Mondial, a 17-story high-rise nearing completion in the 900 block of West Huron Street.

Join us for the first part of our tour of Mondial with Jack Berger, who is both the architect and developer of the project.

We haven't posted an update on Pure, 24 S Morgan St, in several months, not because we don't like it, but because we just haven't had much to report on the West Loop high-rise. Nobody has moved into the building yet, but as the above photo indicates and as sales director Suzy Grossman confirms, construction is 95 percent completed, and first move-ins should begin sometime this month.

Grossman says that about 65 percent of the 67 units in the building have sold so far, but units are still available in one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans. Prices start in the $280s for one-bedrooms, and the most expensive three-bedroom / two-baths are priced in the $810s.

One lifestyle feature that developer Sunrise Equities is promoting is their "Pure Portal," a residents-only Web site that promises to keep building residents "digitally connected at all times." I can't review the Pure Portal because I haven't used it, but according to the Pure Web site, it will offer "area information including restaurant delivery menus, weather, up-to-date traffic, access to doorman security, as well as information on building utilities."

All of the units are being finished out now, Grossman says, so I guess that doesn't leave buyers much room to select finishes or customize. According to the Web site, units will come with bamboo floors and carpeting in bedrooms, recessed lighting, 1.25-inch granite countertops, Poggenpohl cabinets, Bosch appliances, and Grohe faucets.

Grossman says that parking, which is normally priced at $35,000, is currently being offered at half-price. Below is a rendering of Pure that, when compared with the photo above, looks a bit more realistic than most of the renderings that pass by my desk.

- Rate and review Pure at NewHomeNotebook.com

Remember those incentives Chieftain Group rolled out a few weeks ago at Lexington Park Condominiums? The free parking for life and free gas for a year offers? Probably not, because the deal only ran from 11:00 a.m. Aug. 23rd to 5:00 p.m. Aug. 24th, but it seems to have been enough to jump-start sales at the South Loop high-rise.

Britta Rivera, vice president of sales for Chieftain Group, says five units in the 333-unit development sold that weekend, adding that the incentive also succeeded in generating interest among buyers and potential leads for her sales team.

Rivera says Chieftain is now offering another incentive whereby garage parking will be sold at half price - $17,450 per space - and city workers will receive $5,000 towards closing costs. Rivera takes credit for coming up with the city worker incentive, explaining that the development is near a police station, a fire house and a teachers school, and she wants to appeal to people who might already be passing the development on a daily basis.

A model recently opened in the Lexington Park sales center for an 818 square-foot one-bedroom-plus-den that would be priced in the $290s, Rivera says. Construction is charging ahead on the 35-story high-rise, as crews have reached the 28th floor.

- Rate and review Lexington Park Condominiums at NewHomeNotebook.com

It has been under construction for about four months now, and we finally have some construction photos of Museum Park Place South, the newest high-rise taking shape at The Enterprise Companies' Museum Park at Central Station in the South Loop.

Museum Park Place South will look like a near mirror image of the first Museum Park Place tower (see the rendering to the right), as it will have red beams placed vertically and horizontally its east and west faces, but it will be six stories taller than its neighbor to the north.

Ralph Oliva of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage expects first deliveries to begin in late summer or early fall 2009.

"Parking is totally above ground, so as long as we don’t have to excavate, the construction moves pretty fast," Oliva says.

The 29-story high-rise at 1901 S Calumet Ave will have 276 one- to three-bedroom condos and eight four-story townhouses at its base. The condos are priced from the $250s to the $600s, and the townhouses are priced from the $860s. Oliva says the most popular units are the east-facing, 1,250 square-foot two-bedrooms with dens, which start in the $450s, but units are still available in all floor plans.

West-facing units are typically about $75,000 to $100,000 less expensive than their east-facing counterparts, Oliva says, adding that most of the remaining west-facing units are one-bedrooms. A current incentive offers free stainless-steel appliances, marble finishes in the master bath, and a washer and dryer. Parking is an additional $35,000.

About 55 percent of the units in Museum Park Place South have been sold, Oliva says.

- Rate and review Museum Park Place South at NewHomeNotebook.com

I've never been quite sure what to make of Park Monroe, the shoe box-shaped office building in the Loop where developer Glenstar Properties is converting the top nine floors into luxury condos.

The old office building at 55 E Monroe St was never one of the more enchanting buildings in the Loop skyline (especially when viewed from the east, as it looms over the Michigan Avenue streetwall), so giving the top half a makeover could only improve the building's sex appeal, right? At least that's what I thought after looking at Glenstar's watercolor rendering, which, I'll admit, requires some suspension of disbelief.

Now, the inset balconies are nowhere to be seen, and I don't see any real changes to the building's exterior. Instead, I see a few blemishes where it looks like parts of the outer wall have fallen off, so I'm still having a tough time imagining what the finished product will be like.

As I wrote last month, deliveries at the Park Monroe are set to begin in November, and construction should be completed by next spring. The remaining two-bedroom units are priced from the $850s to $1.7 million.

- Rate and review The Park Monroe at NewHomeNotebook.com

Provence Development Group's Astoria Tower Residences & Spa is currently under construction at 8 E 9th St in the Loop, and while we've written quite a bit about the 30-story tower over the past year, this is the first sales update we've posted on Yo since 2006. Back then, New Homes reported that pre-construction sales had reached 80 percent. Now, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage agent Tom Hartmann says that 75 units are currently for sale, which is slightly more than 30 percent of Astoria Tower's 241 units, so a net of some 10 to 15 contracts must have been broken in the past two years.

Hartmann says most of the remaining units are one-bedrooms (with and without dens) and two-bedrooms. He says the 683 square-foot one-bedrooms priced below $250,000 have been among the most popular units in the building, and that only seven of those units are still available.

The most abundant units (or least popular, whichever you prefer) are the two-bedroom / two-baths, of which at least 35 remain. The two-bedrooms range in size from 1,137 to 1,480 square feet and in price from the $390s to the $690s.

A current sales incentive includes one year of free assessments and a $2,500 upgrade credit on finishes. Hartmann adds that even though Astoria Tower will be a full-amenity building, assessments will be kept between about $280 to $500 because most of the building amenities will be offered on an a la carte basis. Parking is currently offered from $40,000 to $42,000.

Deliveries on floors 2 through 10 are expected to begin in December. Construction should wrap up by early fall 2009, Hartmann says.

- Rate and review Astoria Tower at NewHomeNotebook.com.

With the release of Appraisal Research Counselors' latest report on the downtown condo market and some renewed conversation on here about Piedmont Group's Glashaus, I started wondering just how many of the city's high-rise projects were stuck in that limbo between the launch of sales and actual construction.

The answer? At least 14, maybe more. It's not an exact science - for example, a lot of dirt has moved around at the Glashaus site (their sales agents have called it "foundation work") but I still can't see any structural elements in place. On the other hand, something's happening (or has happened, at least) at the Chicago Spire site, so I left it off the list. Likewise, there have been conflicting reports about the fate of Waterview Tower for the past few months, but the parking deck is in place, so until I hear otherwise, I'm assuming it's going to go up in one fashion or another.

Anyway, here are the 14 towers we're still waiting on, in case you're looking for a home down the road and don't mind waiting a couple more years for deliveries. Some, like the Mandarin Oriental Tower, have dangled on the lip of the dust bin all year long. Others may have a better shot of going up if their developers decide to ride things out.

Which are your faves (and least favorites)? Which have we missed? Tell us below, or better yet, post a review on NewHomeNotebook.com.

Loop:

• Mandarin Oriental Tower, 215 N Stetson Ave: 514 homes from the $550s to $21 million (Rate and review)

Streeterville:

• The Peshtigo, 515 N Peshtigo Ct: 357 homes from the $480s to $2.7 million (Rate and review)
• The St Clair at Cityfront Plaza, 240 E Illinois St: 253 homes from the $380s to $4 million (Rate and review)

River North:

• 9 West Erie, 9 W Erie St: 60 homes from the $280s to the $600s (Rate and review)
• The Huron, 8 E Huron St: 47 homes from $1 million to $5 million (Rate and review)

West Loop:

• Catalyst, 123 N Desplaines St: 212 homes from the $230s to the $850s (Rate and review)

South Loop:

• Eco18, 1818 S Wabash Ave: 93 homes from the $240s to the $640s (Rate and review)
• Glashaus, 1327 S Wabash Ave: 262 homes from the $230s to $1.2 million (Rate and review)
• Park 1000, 1000 S Michigan Ave: 346 homes from the $440s to $4 million (Rate and review)
• X/O Condominiums, 1712 S Prairie Ave: 488 homes from the $290s to $2.1 million (Rate and review)

Lincoln Park:

• Lincoln Park 2520, 2520 N Lakeview Ave: 312 homes from the $500s to $13 million (Rate and review)

Lakeview East:

• The Winchester, 3177 N Hudson Ave: 48 homes from the $380s to $1.9 million (Rate and review)

Edgewater:

• Bluewater 5440, 5440 N Sheridan Rd: 187 homes from the $160s to $1.3 million (Rate and review)

Hyde Park:

• Solstice on the Park, 5526 S Cornell Ave: 145 homes from the $500s to $2.3 million (Rate and review)

Edit: Thanks, Bob.

I've always thought of Avenue East, the white and blue high-rise at left in the above photo, and 550 St Clair, the glassy high-rise at right, as twins separated at birth. They're both boxy, they have roughly the same footprint and they're about the same height.

However, when it comes to the units that are currently available at each of these Streeterville high-rises, they're actually quite different. The remaining inventory at Avenue East is limited to a couple of one-bedrooms and 20 two-bedrooms, whereas 550 St Clair's remaining units range from studios to three-bedroom units. So for the sake of comparison, I'll look at a couple of two-bedroom / two-bath units.

The floor plan at left is from the 07 tier in Avenue East, which, as I mentioned in a post yesterday, has 1,100 square feet of living space and is priced from the $510s to the $550s (under a pricing incentive set to expire September 14), depending on the floor.

At about 1,200 square feet, unit 1004 in 550 St Clair (at right) is a bit larger. It's priced a bit higher too, in the $590s, although that falls in line with Avenue East's range of prices per square foot.

The 550 St Clair condo is a corner unit, and both the south and east walls appear to be floor-to ceiling windows. For its part, the Avenue East unit should have plenty of light too, and the layout of its master bedroom is pretty spacious. Both units have inset balconies, and while no measurements are listed for the 550 St Clair balcony, it appears to be smaller than Avenue East's 12-6" x 5-6" balcony.

Parking comes at a premium in Streeterville, and that could make or break a deal either of these units. We've seen a number of different parking incentives at 550 St Clair this year, but Ron Ruby of Weichert Realtors First Chicago says that all parking spaces are currently priced at $50,000. At Avenue East, parking that's normally $45,000 to $60,000 is currently being offered at half price for the 07 tier, bringing it down to about half the price of a 550 St Clair space.

Don't take that to mean that you'll have to pay full price at 550 St Clair. There are no specific pricing incentives at 550 St Clair right now, but Ruby invites price negotiation.

"Bring us your offers," Ruby says, echoing Appraisal Research Counselors' recent statement that "point of purchase concessions" are the norm in this market.

- Rate and review Avenue East at NewHomeNotebook.com.
- Rate and review 550 St Clair at NewHomeNotebook.com.

A few blocks south and west of JFJ Development's Superior 110, another Hartshorne Plunkard-designed high-rise, Stonegate Development's Silver Tower, keeps on rising.

The two projects aren't all that similar - Silver Tower will be 13 stories taller and will have more than three times as many condos as Superior 110 when complete - but you can tell they were designed by the same firm. Superior 110 is kind of like a convex lens, its east and west faces curving in at the edges. Likewise, the western side of Silver Tower (which is a little hard to see in the photograph at left, since I was trying to keep the sun behind me) curves inward slightly, like an arrowhead with its tip sheared off. I'm guessing Silver Tower won't have the same deep blue glass that JFJ chose for its building, but you never know.

More than 70 percent of Silver Tower's homes were under contract at the end of July, and its remaining one- to three-bedroom condos were selling from the $290s to the $790s. In case you missed the post, Mark recently compared one of the building's two-bedrooms with a similar unit from its other new-construction neighbor, The Gammonley Group's 757 Orleans @ Chicago.

Edit: Silver Tower, of course, is at 303 W Ohio St.

- Rate and review Silver Tower at NewHomeNotebook.com.