The Chicago Plan Commission on Thursday approved a partial conversion of Onterie Center, a 59-story high-rise at 446 E. Ontario St. in Streeterville. Five floors of office space, encompassing about 185,000 square feet, will become 77 condos, said Richard Klawiter, an attorney with the firm DLA Piper, which is representing developer MPA Onterie Center, L.L.C. The office space is now about 50 percent leased and occupied, he added.
The new condos will top ground-floor retail and parking levels. Above them are 594 existing apartments. None of the current residents will be displaced by the conversion, Klawiter said.
The conversion will entail few changes to the exterior of the building, according to renderings presented to the commission, although Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture will cut recessed balconies into the building’s vertical and sloped walls and install a green roof. About eight of the new condos will be set aside as affordable housing, per city requirements.