A new office building located at the southwest corner of Illinois Street and LaSalle Drive is being planned for River North. Developers have filed a zoning application for a 12 story building that would wrap around the existing landmarked building at 444 N. LaSalle per Chicago Curbed.
The proposed structure would reach a height of 183 feet and contain 7,500 square feet of ground floor retail topped by 11 floors of office space and a rooftop deck.
The project does not include any parking and is designed by Lamar Johnson Collaborative, the Chicago based architecture firm currently working on the Uptown Theatre restoration.
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The construction site has a complicated past. Project developer Jaime Javors had originally planned a 300 unit apartment tower at the site but this plan was rejected by 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly. Also at the time, Javors was held up in a legal dispute with the developer of a proposed 18 story hotel slated for an adjacent parking lot to the south of this site.
According to Crain's Chicago Business, Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Javors, has confirmed that the litigation has been settled but declined to comment further. It is believed that the other developer, James Porritt also plans to move forward with his hotel project at 430 N. LaSalle Drive.
Javors' firm, Midwest Property Group, needs the approval of the Chicago Plan Commission and City Council before he can begin construction of his office building. Office developers also try to lease at least part of a planned building before they start ground breaking and financing.
River North has remained a strong submarket in a healthy downtown office market but a construction wave will add about 3.6 million square feet of office space to the central business district this year. With this huge increase of supply, the downtown vacancy rate which was 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, could rise this year.
DataBid is currently reporting on this project - Illinois Street & LaSalle Drive Retail & Office Building River North - Chicago (0011020119)
