Sixteen months after we told you that the last non-park undeveloped space along North Lake Shore Drive between the Chicago River and Diversey Harbor is finally going to be filled in, we have achieved paperwork.
Plans for a new building to be erected at 59 East Banks Street were filed with the city yesterday. The Booth Hansen design is an eight story building with 58 homes and 42 parking spaces. It’s hard to tell from the diagrams in the city’s computers exactly what the building will look like, but it appears that it will lean substantially toward the historic character of the neighborhood, rather than the ugly brick mistake across the street.
- Address: 59 East Banks Street
- Address: 1321 North Ritchie Court
- Address: 1316 North Lake Shore Drive
- Net site area: 25,431 square feet
- Floor Area Ratio: 5.081
- Maximum height: 115 feet, one inch
- Maximum residences: 58
- Parking spaces: 42
- Loading docks: one
- Green roof alert: 7,383 square feet
Location: 59 East Banks Street, Gold Coast
Editor founded the Chicago Architecture Blog in 2003, after a long career in journalism. He can be reached at chicagoarchitectureinfo@gmail.com.
May 25, 2017
That ugly brick abomination is the site of the former Palmer Mansion. That’s what we get for a private individual leaving something nice to the city of Chicago.
June 5, 2017
Chicago does not respect its history. Sure there is an empty parking lot owned by Draper and Kramer that now
has to be filled in with a building blocking the view of my modest apartment. If you have never seen the view of the lake
from about the 10th floor you do not know the loss. I could see if Chicago needed more apartments but there is already
a glut. This space should be preserved as a park or a row of the traditional 3 level mansions that would have lined Lake
Shore drive originally.