An exterior transformation is taking shape at 600 N Dearborn Street in River North, where a 21-story condominium building known as The Farallon is being repainted from a light beige to a dark gray. The current work will visually distinguish the 161-unit tower from a deluge of other postmodern buildings that sprout up around the turn of the century.
600 N Dearborn Street. Photo by Jack Crawford
600 N Dearborn Street. Photo by Jack Crawford
The Magellan Development-owned edifice was originally built in 2001, having been designed by Loewenberg Architects and costing just under $40 million to construct. The nearly 270,000-square-foot structure is anchored by 8,600 square feet of retail, with 161 residential units on its upper floors. The design features a series of curved bays and recessed balconies, as well as floor-to-ceiling windows and the aforementioned painted concrete facade.
600 N Dearborn Street. Photo by Jack Crawford
Residing at the corner of Dearborn and Ohio Streets, residents within The Farallon will find various nearby transit options, such as bus stops for Routes 22, 36, 65, 125, and 156 all within two blocks of the property. Closest CTA L trains can be found via a five-minute walk northeast to the Red Line at Chicago station, while the Chicago station for the Brown and Purple Lines is available via a six-minute walk northwest.
600 N Dearborn Street (unpainted side). Photo by Jack Crawford
As noted by a recent Urbanize Chicago article, the current repainting follows a growing trend of other “de-beiging” initiatives like West77 Apartments and 340 W Superior. These kinds of projects will help continue to steer Near North Side away from a monolithic urbanscape.
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LOLZ River North repainting with Gentrification Gray
This is one of those prime examples of just how ugly above ground parking floors can be. This building looks and feels hostile mostly because of this, and painting it grey is not going to fix a fundamentally flawed building. Also being along a one-way-pair highway doesn’t help it feel like a warm and inviting place to live or set up shop in it’s retail – other than the Chase bank location, its retail has been empty for a long time now.
Lipstick on a pig.
Agreed that the paint job is not going to help the bad and unfixable parking podium. Also, the windowless triangle-shaped rental building known as Asbury Plaza (750 N. Dearborn) is also in midst of a gray transition.
Presidential Towers in West Loop Gate are also going gray.
Not sure what the rational is.
Gray creates feelings of sadness and depression. It also evokes feelings of loneliness and isolation. Couldn’t designers come up with something more interesting and appropriate for this prime location?
I never thought a color could be worse than River North Beige yet here we are. Terrible.