Plans for a 51-story office tower along the Chicago River cleared a key political hurdle Thursday, winning approval from the Chicago Plan Commission, but a major financial hurdle remains — securing a lead tenant for the 1.35 million-square-foot office building.
The commission unanimously approved the project, which would be at 110 N. Wacker Drive, replacing a low-rise office building now occupied by GGP, formerly General Growth Properties.
The tower’s co-developer, John O’Donnell of Riverside Investment & Development of Chicago, told the commission he is “in conversations” with potential tenants. Afterward, in an interview, he declined to identify them.
O’Donnell said he would like to break ground in the spring or summer of 2018 and open the building in the third quarter of 2020. His partner on the project is Dallas-based Howard Hughes Corp.
Designed by Chicago architects Goettsch Partners, the glass-sheathed tower would fill a narrow, trapezoidal site on the east bank of the river’s South Branch. Its most distinctive feature would consist of a tall overhang, framed by V-shaped structural columns, that would shelter a 45-foot-wide riverwalk at street level that would be open to the public.
However, officials said, a dock-level riverwalk that is part of the plan would be a private amenity space for the building’s tenants.
Nearly half of the site would consist of open space. At the same time, officials said, the tower would have one of the highest densities, or floor-area ratios, ever allowed in downtown Chicago. The term “floor-area ratio” refers to the amount of floor space in a building compared with the area of its site.
To secure a zoning bonus that would allow the construction of hundreds of thousands of extra square feet, the developers promised to contribute more than $19 million to the city’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund.
It would be the largest contribution to date to the fund, an official of the city’s Department of Planning and Development said at the meeting. The fund chiefly funnels money to improve commercial corridors in “underserved” neighborhoods.
The tower’s site is bounded by the Chicago River on the west, Randolph Street on the north, Washington Street on the south and the north-south leg of Wacker on the east.
The building’s lobby along Wacker would be 45 feet tall. Because of the tower’s proximity to downtown’s train stations, it would have only 87 parking spaces. The tower would have multiple setbacks topped by green roofs. Its serrated profile along the river would provide numerous corner office spaces.
Ald. Brendan Reilly, in whose 42nd Ward the high-rise would be located, called the design “an elegant addition to Wacker Drive.”
An earlier version of this article had an inaccurate number of stories for the tower.
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