The Granville, a major development that will include retail and a residential tower, finally broke ground on the barren northeast corner of Granville and Broadway avenues in Edgewater Jan. 3 after more than two years of haggling over permits between the city and the developer.
The 30,000 square feet of retail space in the building’s ground floor will provide area residents with much needed shopping, says Adam Burck, Executive Director of the Edgewater Development Corporation, which promotes commercial revitalization. Besides a smattering of thriving small businesses there are few places for residents to shop in the neighborhood. “This is the kind of jump start that will help move that area along,” Burck says. “The community is crying out for it.”
Staples, the office-supply chain, edged out alternative grocer Trader Joe’s to be the anchor tenant, says The Granville’s developer, Bill Platt, of Access Group Chicago, and restaurants and national retailers will get priority for the other spaces. Staples will front Broadway, and smaller retail tenants will have space on Granville. The stores will be topped by two levels of parking and eight stories of condominiums.
Some local groups that gave input on the project were concerned that an 11-story building would be out of scale with the more modest structures that line Broadway, says architect Matt Haylock, of Haylock Design, Inc. in Gurnee. To avoid that stark contrast, he designed the condominium tower to sit back from the retail level like a tier of a wedding cake to make the building seem less imposing. He also used glass throughout to make the structure seem less dense.
The tower will have 160 one-, two- and three-bedroom condominiums, 106 of which have already been sold, Platt says. They will range from 900 to 1,600 square feet and be priced from the $250s to the $420s, with 10 percent of the units set aside for affordable housing. Indoor parking is available for $25,000 per spot. The condos have the usual amenities (granite countertops, hardwood floors and some marble), and the building has a green roof. Platt says he expects residents will be able to move in by the early spring of 2008.