The Chicago Community Development Commission has initially approved TIF funding for the redevelopment of 105 W Adams Street in The Loop. Located at the corner of South Clark Street and next to the Federal Center, the iconic structure has seen multiple redevelopment attempts over the past few years. Now, Chicago-based Primera Group is moving forward with its plans.
79 W Monroe Street (green) – 19 S LaSalle Street (red) – 105 W Adams Street (orange) via Google Maps
Built in 1926, the 41-story, 476-foot-tall tower was originally designed by the Burnham Brothers in the Art Deco style. Since then, it has housed a number of tenants while slowly falling into disrepair, a condition visible in its heavily stained façade. However, the Club Quarters hotel continues to occupy floors three through ten.
Image of 105 W Adams Street
As part of the broader LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative, the team has brought on local design firm Pappageorge Haymes to oversee the conversion of the upper floors. These will be turned into 400 apartments, consisting of 195 studios, 122 one-bedroom units, and 83 two-bedroom layouts. Of the total units, 121 will be designated as affordable housing.
Rendering of 105 W Adams Street by Pappageorge Haymes
The project would also add 28,888 square feet of commercial space on the lower levels, which the city hopes will attract a grocery store. Additionally, there will be amenity space on the 24th floor and potential terraces on the building’s setbacks. The development also includes a full restoration of the exterior façade, including new operable windows, and the removal of the rear fire escapes.
PREVIOUS proposed floor plan of 105 W Adams Street by DesignBridge
The project carries a $183.5 million price tag, of which $67.5 million will come from TIF funding and now requires City Council approval. The remainder will be financed through a combination of loans, equity, and historic tax credits, per CDC documents. The team aims to break ground in January 2026 and complete the redevelopment by mid-2027.
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This is a great outcome for a long deteriorating building. Fingers crossed that it actually comes to pass.
Hard to complain about this one. Maybe we could’ve had more family-sized units but it’s good to see these projects hopefully bringing much-needed life and historical preservation to the Loop.
Love seeing this and I hope it does secure a solid grocery store. The Loop becoming a very livable urban neighborhood is an incredibly important thing to happen to have Chicago continue to grow and thrive even more. It can be a mix of many businesses, retails spaces, and residential and shed its central business district-only identity.
These buildings are such a resource for affordability But agree with earlier comment we need more family housing
The only way in which I see the Loop becoming a truly liveable neighborhood is by being paired with an entire road network redevelopment.
Not every street needs a facelift, but hopefully, what they draw up for LaSalle St does precisely that. State and Upper Wacker also need the boulevard effect. The canyons of the Loop will never produce a Champs-Élysées, but something in line with what NYC is doing with Park Ave or Broadway. Imagine if Chicago implemented its own Barcelona Superblocks of pedestrianization…
We would have the failure that was the State Street Pedestrian Mall all over again. This idea worked in Barcelona and practically nowhere else.
State Street and Upper Wacker as boulevards, however, would nice improvements.
State was NEVER made a proper pedestrian zone. It was an asphalt road with above average sidewalk widths chocked by some of the worse polluting standards of diesel buses of the time.
Compare that to what Barcelona has delivered, the two cities are nothing alike. State was a shopping and office street. Barely any housing if any. Modify that reality to today, there is a 36,000+ and growing population that calls the Loop home.
It doesn’t take an idiot to see how different the two are with execution. Btw, how well is State doing as a 4-lane shoppers paradise? Surely there’s be no struggles of vacancy since reversal.
Here’s just some popular pedestrian streets that pair quite well with commercial. All of which tons better than State’s mishap.
– Times Square (NYC)
– Pearl St. Mall (Boulder)
– Las Ramblas (Barcelona)
– Strøget (Copenhagen)
– Rue Moufgetard (Paris)
– Carnaby St (London)
– Qianmen St (Beijing)
– Flower St (Curitiba)
– Buchanan St (Glasgow)
– Lincoln Rd (Miami)
– Cat St (Tokyo)
– Bahnhofstrass (Zürich)
“It doesn’t take an idiot to see how different the two are with execution” is one of the most awkward sentences I’ve read in a while.
Regardless, you are correct that Barcelona and Chicago are much different. Barcelona gets millions of tourists a year and Las Ramblas is adjacent to an area of medieval development that works completely different than the Chicago Loop. Assuming what works in Barcelona would work in Chicago is insanity.
For the record, State Street is doing really well since it turned back to a regular street. It has made huge gains in catching up to Michigan Avenue and the vacancies there are much more attributable to WFH, and the Loop’s decline in general. If you think otherwise you’re simply not informed.
And some of the projects you mention are questionable. Pearl St. Mall in Boulder? Have you been there? Lincoln Road in Miami Beach? They’re both as crappy as the State Street Mall in Madison. They’re homeless magnets that fall far from their potential. And most New Yorkers agree that Times Square is much worse since its conversion. There is already chatter in that town about undoing this mistake. But a tourist like you who goes there and sees the tall buildings with mouth agape says, “We need that!”
Many pedestrian malls that have been successful have only been so because the areas were already successful. Look at the thousands of towns that tried them to revive their downtowns only to have them fail fantastically.
Have you ever been to Nicolet Mall in Minneapolis? It’s awful! You deserve to be an architect for low-income housing. Anything of more consequence would be above you.
You are hyperfocusing on all the wrong aspects.
Obviously, a cozy main street is going to be of a completely different scale to a city of millions, but it’s how they fit the space. State didn’t have that comfortable stroll in the trees; it was like a glitzy shopping mall, still choked by bus smog.
With the holidays, Lollapalooza, and many other events, Chicago also sees millions of visitors. Sundays on State are when the street is busiest, and newsflash: It’s when they shut down the street to cars.
Things are improving for State, but you must be joking, claiming the street is thriving. Walgreens keeps waving closures, Block 37 keeps losing tenants, and Macy’s is a shell. Even the loss of Blick was sad. These aspects are all from a changing world fueled by a post-pandemic social climate. There is more to the picture beyond shopping online. I’m sure rents aren’t kind, and cleanliness/safety adds to hesitancy. But pedestrian numbers are just about back to pre-COVID. I still believe doing the same old, same old is not going to be enough to bring the shopping promenade back.
And maybe do a little research. Almost every failed pedestrian mall that fails has little to no mixed-use aspects. There are typically no grocers, very little residential, and it is still dominated by vehicular traffic in some aspects. Niciolet Mall looks overwhelmingly unenthused in all the most boring of corporate ways. Compare that to the shopping promenade of Dubai’s marina, there’s life and color. The area is a vast mix of tourism and residential.
I have never been to Times Square and have very little interest in being bombarded by gaudy ads. Still, almost all online literature indicates Times Square struggles relating to overcrowding and drugs/mentally ill not being dealt with. It sounds like the overpaid NYPD is not doing its job.
The Zeil in Frankfurt is probably the closest to what Chicago’s State Street is and could be. There is still transit access, but it’s a mix of shopping, living, and office space. Simply converting a street is not enough. The city has to integrate life, too. All failed previous malls neglected that aspect and think adding some benches and wider sidewalks is enough. You need playgrounds, maybe some gardens, a wow factor, etc. State’s initial design was akin to an indoor suburban mall.
And working in architecture, I have helped design wineries, homes in the $10+ million range, skyscrapers, a college in rural Tanzania, city plazas, public marketspaces, hotels, affordable multi-family housing in the most NIMBY of cities, and more. My range is quite versatile.
There is absolutely no way they are undoing the Broadway pedestrianization in NYC. In fact, they are moving forward with banning cars on Broadway all the way from 17th to 59th Street.
Very nice, stayed here often as it was consistently one of the cheapest hotels in the loop
I never even realized the building was supposed to look like that, I’m so used to the stained fascade