Chicago Development is Bringing 4,950 Homes to Downtown

The new park and the Lakeshore East development in downtown Chicago is touted as the city's biggest economic lift since the North Loop redevelopment of the 1980s.

The six-acre botanical park for the master-planned Lakeshore East ???village?????????(R)??????oe is already built. Seven of the 18 proposed high-rises are built or being built. Low-rise park homes are also under construction. The village will offer 2.2 million square feet of commercial space, 1,500 hotel rooms, 770,000 square feet of retail space and an elementary school on the edge of the park.

The news from the housing sector isn?????t all bad. Chicago?????s media is gushing about the Lakeshore East development in downtown, and rightly so. The project is lead by the Magellan Development Group?????s $4 billion investment. Magellan, founded in 1987, is one of Chicago?????s most prolific developers, with over 12,000 residential units developed. According to Magellan, Lakeshore East is the largest parcel (28 acres) of downtown land under development in any major U.S. city. The master-planned ???village?????????(R)??????oe within the heart of the city will include 4,950 new residences (high-rise condominiums and apartments), 2.2 million square feet of gross commercial space, 1,500 hotel rooms, 770,000 square feet of retail space and a planned elementary school surrounding a six-acre botanical park. The new patch of green, yet unnamed, is already built and just a block away from Chicago?????s Millennium Park. (Editor?????s note: Millennium Park was featured in our July 2005 issue, ???Chicago?????s Crown Fountain Is King of the Park,?????????(R)??????oe see landscapearchitect.com).

The architectural firm for the development is Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Benet Haller, director of urban design and planning for Chicago?????s planning department, calls Lakeshore East ???well-executed.?????????(R)??????oe The planning consultant is Larry Okrent, of Okrent & Associates Inc.