Chicago developers learned long ago that one way to make your project successful is to build a park next to it. If there’s no room for a park, there’s always Plan B: a grocery store.
That’s what’s going in a 525 South Wabash Avenue, where north suburban developer e-Terra+ wants to replace a parking lot and a parking garage with two glass-faced buildings atop a common base.
The plan will face both South Wabash Avenue and East Ida B. Wells Drive, wrapping around Roosevelt University’s Lillian and Larry Goodman Center.
The Wells-facing building will be 23 stories tall, and contain 261 residences and 314 hotel rooms. The Wabash-facing building is envisioned as a 36-story residential tower with 516 homes. The two buildings will be linked by a podium with 151 automobile parking spaces, and the requisite street front retail.
Having spent two weeks in the run down Travelodge immediately to the south overlooking the location of this project through dirty windows, we can tell you that the space is depressing right now. In a cold drizzle, it’s absolutely miserable. So we’re happy to see the space redeveloped into something less forlorn, and more forward-looking.
Location: 525 South Wabash Avenue, South Loop
Editor founded the Chicago Architecture Blog in 2003, after a long career in journalism. He can be reached at chicagoarchitectureinfo@gmail.com.
