Chicago Precedent

In urban centers dominated by tall buildings, access to outdoor space is important. In this article the project architects explain how one urban office building development provides valuable outdoor open space. In Chicago, the development involves transforming an open urban scar into one of the city’s largest public landscaped areas. The development is located on a key CBD site along the Chicago River. The result is a unique 52-storey structure of which enclosed ground floor space occupies <25% of the site area, offering public landscaped open space. 

As urban centers become increasingly dominated by high rise buildings, access to outdoor space has become a very important amenity. This paper will explain how commercial high-rise office building development located in the United States provides valuable outdoor open.

The 107,500 square foot site that is now known as 150 North Riverside has all of the key locational attributes that is expected of a class A office building. The site is two blocks from Chicago’s busies commuter rail station and it offers convenient access to the City’s expressways. It is a very prominent site on the Chicago River with great view potential both looking across the river at the surrounding cityscape.

Given the location and its positive attributes, it is natural that many developers had considered developing this site. However, the site remained undeveloped and an open scar on the City for more than 70 years. Riverside Investment & Development Company (Developer) believed this was the best available office building site in the central business district and decided to purpose but they knew that they faced a number of obstacles.

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