Work Begins on Downtown Chicago Apartment Tower
Ground has broken on Wolf Point West Tower, a 47-story multifamily project in downtown Chicago. When completed in the fall of 2015, the property will feature 509 rental units, 200 parking spaces and more than 400 feet of publicly accessible river walk.
By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor
Chicago—Ground has broken on Wolf Point West Tower, a 47-story multifamily project in downtown Chicago. When completed in the fall of 2015, the property will feature 509 rental units, 200 parking spaces and more than 400 feet of publicly accessible river walk.
The apartments will rise on Wolf Point on the banks of the Chicago River near the Merchandise Mart, at the site where the river forks into its North and South Branches. The location has been underutilized for many years, and has been mostly covered by a parking lot in recent decades. When complete, much of the tower will have an unencumbered view of the Chicago Loop, the Chicago River and even Lake Michigan from the higher floors.
The property, which was designed by bKL Architecture, will be LEED certified. Wolf Point West Tower is the first of three high-rises planned for the site.
The development is collaboration of Hines, Magellan Development Group and PNC Realty Investors. The AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust (BIT) indirectly provided a $34 million equity investment in the project, and BIT’s partners and a third-party lender provided the remaining funds for the development.
BIT is no stranger to investing in downtown Chicago multifamily properties. It was recently involved in the development of a 45-story apartment tower at 500 Lake Shore Dr., located one block from Chicago’s Navy Pier. That property, which was recently completed, has 44 stories, 500 units, and 430 parking spaces.
