The Chicago Plan Commission has approved the partial redevelopment of the high-rise at 446 E Ontario Street in Streeterville. Located just west of N Jean Baptiste Du Sable Lake Shore Drive and Ohio Street Beach, the current tower known as the Onterie Center serves as an office and residential tower near the Northwestern downtown campus with views of the lake. Now with the current changes in demand, developer 441 Erie LLC is working with an undisclosed architect to convert a group of floors into a new extended stay hotel.
Overview of 446 E Ontario Street via Plan Commission
Renderings of 446 E Ontario Street via Plan Commission
The 1986-built tower rises 60 stories and 560 feet in height and was designed by global firm SOM, considered to be the final work by famed-structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan who is best known for both the Willis Tower and John Hancock Center. Concrete filled window panels form a distinct cross-brace on its exterior, becoming the first concrete high-rise in the world to use diagonal shear walls. Its base tapers out to fill out the site and holds 140,000 square feet of office space which will be mostly converted into the aforementioned hotel, sharing the 363 parking garage with the 594 apartments above it.
Sixth floor plan and elevation of 446 E Ontario Street via Plan Commission
Rendering of 446 E Ontario Street via Plan Commission
The garage rises up to floor five, above there the building begins its unique tapering base up to floor 12 that is anchored by two winter gardens cut into the form, these will be converted into 101 extended stay hotel rooms with studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom layouts. On the sixth floor the existing gardens will have their glass roof removed with new terraces built out for select units and all guests as well, a new glass facade will enclose the rooms around them which were previously covered by the glass roof.
Section of 446 E Ontario Street via Plan Commission
Not many more details were made clear, but future guests will have bus access to CTA Routes 2, 29, 65, 66, 120, 121, and 124 within a five-minute walk as well as all of Navy Pier nearby, as well as multiple amenities like a fitness center and indoor pool. With rising office vacancies, we can see multiple buildings going through similar transitions around the city, with the approval amending the existing Planned Development for which the presentation can be found here. No construction timeline has been revealed at the moment.
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Unbelievable. What’s up with that huge podium? If this gets built then we as Chicagoans should feel ashamed.
Hey George, this building already exists and the plans are to convert a few floors to hotels.
Hahaha nice parody of George, needed a laugh!
Nice!
Every time there is a conversion of office spaces to residential or hotels, that is a huge win for multiple reasons. First, it takes empty floors of office space off the market slightly lowering the high vacancy rate of office space downtown. Then, it actually adds people to the area and a use for the building. Finally, it justifies (although right now we still have a long ways to go) adding more office space for new buildings. I just hope the LaSalle street conversions happen sooner than later and we can keep lowering the high office space vacancy and sub-least vacancy. Maybe with a downturn in the economy too and a lot of jobs being lost, more and more businesses will require people to come into work building up more demand again for office space. Hopefully, we have hit the low here in 2023 and by 2025 or 2026 we start seeing the demand again for office space, hotels, and keep up the high demand for residential adding a lot of density to the downtown areas. It would be great if a study came out showing the loss of production and creativity for people working from home to finally get people back in the offices and it justifies companies needing office space again.
” It would be great if a study came out showing the loss of production and creativity for people working from home…”
I would hope such a study comes out only if that is actually true. I’m not saying it isn’t, but I wouldn’t be all that surprised if in aggregate there’s not that much difference. I.e., some people are more productive/creative at home, others in the office, and it ends up being (nearly) a wash in aggregate