4-Oct-12  A room full of downtown residents on Thursday was the first opportunity for Related Midwest to promote the 59-floor apartment building it is constructing from the ruins of Waterview Tower.

Nicholas Anderson and William Tippens, both vice presidents at the real estate development company, spoke to about 100 people over the noon hour at a Friends of Downtown Brown Bag Lecture, taking them through the first harrowing nine years of the project at Wacker Drive and North Clark Street.

When the site was acquired in 2000, the previous developer wanted to build a 92-story tower containing a hotel and condominium. In July 2005, the residences were 60 percent pre-sold. Ground was broken in January 2006 but by December 2007, financing had become difficult to obtain and the project was halted at the 26th floor.

In January 2008, the first sub-contractor lien was filed. In March 2009, the city issued building code violations. In June 2009, Bank of America sought to foreclose on the property. The empty concrete shell sat vacant, a symbol of the real estate market downturn.

By the time Related Midwest wanted to buy the property in 2009, 28 contractors were owed money.

We spent about two years chasing this deal and ultimately instead of simply purchasing the property, explained Anderson, we proposed and were successful in a joint venture with all of the mechanical claims. Related Midwest vice presidents Nick Anderson (left) and Will Tippens (right) at the Chicago Cultural Center on Thursday.

The deal allowed the contractors  from electricians to Bank of America  to pool their claims and become partners in a joint venture. Related closed on the acquisition in July 2011.

According to Anderson, construction crews are currently doing some modification work to the building. We hope to have the tower crane up by the end of the year, pouring concrete, and windows arriving in early spring so its going to start happening pretty quickly here.

Tippens says they considered building a hotel and an office tower before deciding to turn Waterview into an apartment building, which would continue with the original design of a condominium. They also thought about increasing the number of apartment units  to as many as 700  but settled on 500 for efficiency and to avoid saturating the market.

A design competition attracted about six entries, including the winning design by Gary Handel, who for another architectural firm has worked on two nearby buildings, 333 Wacker Drive and 225 West Wacker.

(Above) View of the lower floors. (Click on image to view larger version.)

The design, says Tippens, allows the building to stand out along the Chicago River. The traditional historic deco buildings all along this corridor are all office. And we thought that by going this direction in the design, which is a much more glass-like structure, it would then distinguish [111 West Wacker] as something different than the traditional offices.

A new design offered to the public for the first time in June shows a 630-foot-tall glass and steel tower with 506 apartments from studios to three-bedroom units, 439 parking spaces, retail space on the first floor, an indoor pool, sun deck, fitness facilities, dog run, and a green roof.

The new building should be completed in the spring of 2014.