“It’s sort of like Humpty Dumpty. We’ve spent the last six months picking up the pieces and putting them back together again.”
Kenneth Barnes, senior vice president of Village Green Companies, a Michigan-based developer that’s planning to convert Randolph Tower, the 80-year-old, 45-story building at 188 W Randolph St in the Loop, into a 313-unit rental tower.
Village Green still hopes to use a mix of public funds including TIF financing to pay for the $141-million project, despite the expiration of a $20 million TIF subsidy and the refusal of bank-backed municipal bonds last year, Crain’s reports.
According to the article, renovation of the Vitzhum & Kill-designed tower could cost as much as $450,000 per unit, much more than the cost of constructing a comparable apartment high-rise from the ground up. Village Green wants to begin work early next year and complete the project in 2012.