Construction finished up on this West Loop loft conversion about six months ago, and a variety of one- and two-bedroom floor plans are still available.

Peter Boland from @properties says that one-bedroom units with dens that come with one and 1.5 baths and range in size from 900 to 1,100 square feet are currently being offered from the $250s to the $330s. There are just a handful of two-bedrooms left, including two-bedroom / one-baths start in the $340s and 1,360 to 1,430 square-foot two-bedroom / two-baths that are priced from the $370s to the $410s.

Boland says that as a summer incentive, the developer is throwing in a free parking space, but looking back in the Yo archives, Patrick reported the same deal back in January, so I'll be interested to see if this really is a limited-time offer.

The building is a rehabbed True Value warehouse from the 1940s, Boland says. The units have 12- to 14-foot ceiling heights and concrete floors that are 12 to 18 inches thick. It's location at 1224 W Van Buren St is adjacent to the Eisenhower Expressway, which also means that it's just a block away from the nearest Blue Line Station. Boland also reminds me that the proposed The West Loop Promenade is set to bring retail and an independent movie theater a block away in the other direction.

- Rate and review VB1224 at NewHomeNotebook.com.

Back in January, a reader expressed concern that timber ceilings in The Lofts at River East Art Center at 445 E Illinois St in Streeterville would be left "'as is'–in other words, noisy."

Sales agent Susan Devine says the units are actually quite quiet. Devine says there is an eight-inch floor assembly that includes three inches of lightweight concrete and a five-inch foam underlayment that help to muffle sounds from above, adding that there's a double-thick drywall between units that also helps to keep it quiet.

Prices at The Lofts at River East start in the $430s for a 953 square-foot one-bedroom, and they range up to more than a $1 million.

- Rate and review this development on NewHomeNotebook.com.

The Shoemaker Lofts, Dubin Residential's loft conversion of the old Florsheim Shoe factory at 3963 W Belmont Ave in Avondale, is nearing closeout. In January, Patrick reported on Yo that 39 of the 175 units in the building were available, and in the past six months 33 of those have been taken off the market.

Steve Samuels from Bear Kaufman Realty, which is marketing the project, tells me that the six remaining units are one- and two-bedroom lofts priced from the $230s to the $390s. Two one-bedroom-plus-dens are offered in the $250s and $260s, and a couple of two-bedroom / two-baths are priced in the $230s and $250s. Samuels says there are also two two-bedroom / two-baths priced in the $290s and $390s, the larger of which is 1,450 square feet, while the other is about 1,275 square feet.

When Joe wrote about this development in March he suggested that some of the units that had been taken off the market might have been rented. Samuels confirms the possibility that several units have been rented, but he says he doesn't know how many. Either way, only six units are for sale at the moment.

- Rate and review this project at NewHomeNotebook.com.

Sales have progressed steadily since McKinley Park Lofts was first introduced to the market back in 2006, and now 46 of the 163 units are still available. Sales director Rosemary Malizia says that prices on most of the remaining units were reduced by as much as 6 percent this spring, and buyers of the next five units will receive free deeded parking in a secure lot. (Parking is normally offered for $12,500.)

Malizia also mentioned that the development is located in a "targeted" low-income census tract, which means that it might be possible for eligible buyers to secure attractive loans. (I'll try to get some more information on that soon.)

Price points for the available one- to three-bedroom units are from the $170s to the $330s. Malizia said that unit 502 (pictured above, at right) is one of only two remaining three-bedroom units. The condo, priced in the $290s, is said to have 1,325 square feet of living space, and Malizia says it has nice skyline views. The remaining stock of one- and two-bedrooms are mixed pretty evenly.

Below is the floor plan for unit 418, a 960 square-foot one-bedroom-plus-den that's listed in the $190s.

I don't have a whole lot of details to report at the moment, but I talked to Terese Cataldo of Cataldo Interiors Group this morning and learned that there are some changes in store for the Cataldo / Marovitz Group's loft project at 660 N Kingsbury St in River North.

Val noticed yesterday that Koenig & Strey GMAC Real Estate has taken over the marketing for Park Kingsbury Lofts. With that change comes more than just a redesigned Web site - Cataldo says the project's floor plans and prices are changing to meet buyers' demands for larger units.

According to the Park Kingsbury site, prices now start in the $470s for the development's smallest floor plan, a 1,190 square-foot, two-bedroom loft. Compare that with our sponsored article from February, when Cataldo / Marovitz was offering 927 square foot one-bedrooms starting in the $400s. In essence, the smallest units have gotten larger and are pricier from a bottom-line standpoint, but it looks like the price has actually dropped in terms of cost per square foot.

In February, the development's three-bedroom-plus-den layouts started at $1.1 million. The new prices have those floor plans starting at a little more than $1 million and going up to almost $1.6 million.

I don't have any information yet on how the changes in unit size will affect the total number of units in the project, or how this redesign affects Park Kingsbury's timeline. (First deliveries were supposed to begin around the beginning of 2009.) I hope to hear from Koenig & Strey agent Jim Luby soon to get more details on the changes in store for this development.

That's how co-developer Andres Schcolnick describes the opportunity to develop Opera Lofts, 2545 S Dearborn St.

The video provides an insight into some of the unusual and innovative design features at this loft development.

Although construction at the Lexington Park Condominiums in the South Loop still has a ways to go, the seven-story loft portion of the development is down to its last available two-bedroom unit.

This 1,212 square-foot, seventh-floor unit is located on the north side of the building, and the Chieftain Group's vice president of sales, Britta Rivera, says the master bedroom has a view of the large terrace between the lofts and the tower residences.

This unit is made for a pack rat. I count seven closets, and if that isn't enough, a large storage locker in the building is assigned to each residence. There's also a laundry room with washer and dryer hookups in this unit, but if you need a place to stash even more junk, you could probably convert that into an eighth closet too. This two-bedroom is listed in the $360s.

Each floor of the loft building typically has three or four one-bedroom units that are bookended by larger two-bedroom corner units. The units that Rivera prefers to focus on because of their abundance are the 745 square-foot, one-bedroom lofts. (See floor plan below.) The bedroom doesn't have any windows; instead it has an eight-foot partition separating it from the living area. Ceilings in the lofts are 10 X 7".

This particular unit is listed in the $250s, and because parking for the lofts is currently half-price, Rivera says the place will cost about $275,000 with parking.

Because it is so much smaller than Lexington Park's adjoining high-rise, Rivera says construction on the loft building will be finished before the tower, and she expects deliveries to begin by December.

There are still plenty of units available – 49 to be exact – in the Chess Lofts, the 119-unit South Loop loft conversion at the former home of Chess Records.

According to Jerry Mazo, a sales associate with Garrison Partners, one-bedroom, one-bedroom-plus-den and two-bedroom units are still available in more than a dozen different floor plans.

There are 29 two-bedroom / two-bath units remaining that range in size from 874 to 1,168 square feet, as well as 17 one-bedrooms and three one-bedroom-plus-dens. Some work is still being done on the seventh and eighth floors, but that should be finished within the next 30 days, Mazo says.

One-bedrooms start in the $210s, while the two-bedrooms start in the $260s. Parking is an additional $34,000 to $37,000 and is offered only to buyers of two-bedroom units.

We received some press materials from the Macon Group yesterday and learned that three units in the loft development at 3133 N Lakewood Ave have sold since Joe posted a sales update in March. The loft development still has a way to go before sellout, as only seven of the building's 25 units are under contract.

Looking at the press package, this floor plan for unit 3A, a one-bedroom / one-bath unit on the third floor, stuck out from the rest simply because it looks so similar to the two units in 1720 South Michigan that readers ridiculed earlier this week.

If everyone's numbers are to be believed, unit 3A in 3133 North Lakewood is a little bit larger than either of 1720 South Michigan's floor plans. The kitchen area alone gives you 100 square feet more than what you get at 1720 South Michigan, but it comes at a price: Whereas those 1720 South Michigan's one-bedrooms are listed in the $210s, this one is listed in the $340s.

For comparison within Lake View, Clifton Crossing, located just a few blocks to the south and east, is offering one- and two-bedrooms from the $210s. Over on Ashland, one-bedroom units start in the $290s at the LV Lofts.

I was in the middle of an interview with developer Paul Zucker this afternoon when he mentioned that buyers are moving into Motor Row Lofts, located at 2301 – 2315 S Michigan Ave in the South Loop's Motor Row Historic District.

Deliveries began on lower-level units last week and will continue as homes on the upper floors are completed, Zucker said. A little more than half of the project's 52 units are still available at prices from the $270s to mid-$600s, he says.

As Dan Schuyler wrote in January, buyers at the renovated Holabird and Roche-designed buildings will benefit from an eight-year tax assessment freeze followed by four years of modest adjustments under the Illinois Property Tax Assessment Freeze Program.