150 North Riverside Development Receives Unanimous Approval from Chicago City Council

CHICAGO – The O’Donnell Investment Company’s planned development of a 1.2 million square foot office tower at 150 North Riverside Plaza completed the zoning process on Wednesday, December 11 with a unanimous vote by the Chicago City Council in favor of the planned development (“PD”) ordinance. The City Council vote followed a unanimous vote by the Chicago Plan Commission on November 21 to recommend passage of the ordinance. The project is scheduled to commence construction in July 2014.

“We’re very pleased the City Council has recognized the benefits of this project and we look forward to commencing construction next year,” said John O’Donnell, principal of O’Donnell Investment Company. “Our plans reflect designs refined over two years of meetings between the development team, Alderman Reilly and City of Chicago Department of Housing and Economic Development.”

The development site is one of the most prominent in the city, bounded by Randolph and Lake Streets at the confluence of the three branches of the Chicago River. The 53-story office tower will be located along the river on the eastern edge of the 2-acre site. Additionally, as a result of its unique superstructure design, the building footprint will comprise less than 25 percent of the total site area, with the remaining 75 percent reserved for a public park, riverside amphitheater and riverwalk.

The numerous public improvements contained within the PD ordinance, helped to secure broad support for the project from the local community, including nearby residents and neighborhood organizations. These improvements include over an acre of public park space, reconstruction and modernization of the site’s riverwall, upgraded traffic and pedestrian signals at several intersections outside the property, and the connection of the Riverside Plaza riverwalk, which extends north from Van Buren Street but currently terminates at Randolph Street. The public park and plaza areas will include a number of different seating and assembly zones, along with overlook points for enjoyment of the river, and feature 24/7 security, public restrooms and access to a range of onsite food and beverage options.

Said Mr. O’Donnell, “The building itself occupies less than a quarter of the two-acre site, with the rest comprised of landscaped park, riverside promenade and vista points. We are confident that the project’s open space will be heavily used by tenants and the public for years to come.”

Additionally, the tower will be constructed using sustainable design principles, having recently achieved LEED-CS Gold precertification from the US Green Building Council. The project design will minimize energy consumption while maximizing light and air, open space, and the overall quality of the tenant work environment. In addition to the plaza-level open space, the tower features 100 percent green roof coverage.

The development will address Chicago’s unmet demand for highly efficient and technology-enabled “Class A+” office space, which currently comprises less than 10 percent of the overall Chicago office market.

The 150 N. Riverside project reflects the re-assembly of team members who have been key contributors on some of the most successful commercial office developments in the City of Chicago. The project is being designed by a team led by the 2013 AIA Award winning Chicago-based architecture firm Goettsch Partners, in conjunction with structural engineering firm Magnusson Klemencic Associates, who has U.S. offices in Chicago and Seattle, WA.