Preliminary landmark recommendations have been approved by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks for two buildings in The Loop, ahead of their residential conversions. Located at 19 South LaSalle Street and 105 West Adams Street, both developments have been in the works for over a year and are part of the city’s LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative.
105 West Adams Street
Rising 41 stories behind the city’s iconic Federal Center, this Art Deco–style skyscraper is best known for its distinctive checkered façade. After changing development teams last year, the current conversion project is now being led by Primera Group and Marc Calabria, who purchased the upper floors of the building for $11 million.
PREVIOUS rendering of 105 W Adams Street by Pappageorge Haymes
Local firm DesignBridge has been working on the redevelopment, which calls for a major façade restoration and the conversion of the upper 30 floors into 400 apartments. Of those units, 30 percent will be considered affordable in exchange for partial funding from the city. The project also includes retail space, new amenities, and terraces.
However, the project has been stalled by litigation, as the owners of the Club Quarters Hotel, which occupies the lower floors, filed a lawsuit claiming they were excluded from the development process—an alleged violation of an existing agreement. Once the City Council approves the final designation, the development team will be one step closer to securing additional funding to move the project forward.
View of 19 S LaSalle Street via LoopNet
19 South LaSalle Street
Much smaller than the previous proposal, preliminary landmark status was also granted for the 16-story building that once housed the Central YMCA headquarters. This effort is being led by Igor Gabal and Envoi Partners, who plan to convert the 159,000-square-foot structure into roughly 150–170 residential units, with a similar percentage set aside as affordable housing.
At the moment, no construction timelines have been announced for either project, but the approvals will allow both to move forward to City Council. Once granted final approval, they will be eligible to apply for historic tax credits, among other incentives.
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Can’t wait for the completion into Apts, as well as the other buildings involved in this project This work will loop up the Loop!
The facade of 105 West Adams is checkered because of a brick replacement project in recent years where they installed mismatching brick. It’s possible it would look better if they cleaned the rest of the facade.
Excellent. Love to see more space converted to residential.
These buildings are historic but it is the people using them that keep the buildings alive.
I would love to see a map of all of the buildings converting from office space to residential. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space will be off the market, while how many new apartments will be added. The more office space we eliminate, the more in demand it becomes and can eventually lead to new office buildings being built again.