Roosevelt University to construct 32 story building. 2nd tallest in United States!

Roosevelt University to Build 32-Story Vertical Campus for Academics, Student Life and Housing

Roosevelt University will begin construction in February on a dramatic skyscraper that will be the second tallest university building in the nation.

The University’s new vertical campus will be sleek and contemporary, featuring a glass exterior, undulating shape, views of Lake Michigan and connections in four locations with the University’s landmark Auditorium Building.  A groundbreaking ceremony for the project is planned for April.

Designed with open spaces that will make the building feel like a series of neighborhoods, the structure will be a “green” building, drawing in natural light and cutting energy costs, and will be one of the few skyscrapers in Chicago that is LEED certified.

The 32-story multi-purpose building will be located at 425 S. Wabash Avenue in Chicago on the site of the University’s old Herman Crown Center, which is currently being demolished.

The structure will have classrooms, lecture halls, state-of-the-art science labs, conference space, a dining center, a student recreation center, residence suites for more than 600 students, offices and space for the Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration.

The new facility is needed for increasing numbers of full-time students who are taking more credit hours than ever before at the Chicago Campus. The University is projecting full-time equivalency enrollments will continue to rise significantly through 2017. The building will increase classroom capacity by 40 percent at the Chicago Campus and will pave the way for centralization of student services and new facilities for growing numbers of student-life organizations.

“This is the most important development in the University’s history since the Auditorium Building was acquired in 1946,” said Roosevelt University President Chuck Middleton. “We are building the quintessential 21st Century university structure and it’s going to give us a dramatic new image on Chicago’s skyline….”

Check out the full article by clicking HERE!  Photos courtesy of Roosevelt University’s website!

 

 

Mortgage rates tie with the record low of 4.78% Perfect for home-buyin’!

Mortgages Tie Record Low of 4.78%

By AMY HOAK

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate home mortgages averaged 4.78% this week, matching an all-time low in Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates, released Wednesday.

The mortgage averaged 4.83% last week and 5.97% a year ago. This week’s average matched a low set the week ending April 30.

“Interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans are currently 0.8 percentage points below this year’s peak set in mid-June, which shaves roughly $100 off the monthly payments on a $200,000 mortgage,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist.

Fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.29% for the week ended Nov. 25, a new low since Freddie Mac began tracking it in 1991. This week’s average is down from 4.32% last week and 5.74% a year ago. The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 4.18% this week, down from 4.25% last week and 5.86% a year ago. The ARM hasn’t been this low since Freddie Mac started tracking it in 2005.

And the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 4.35%, unchanged from last week. The ARM averaged 5.18% a year ago. It hasn’t been lower since the week ending July 7, 2005, when it averaged 4.33%…

To check out the full Wall Street Journal article, click HERE!

Existing home sales are UP an average of 10.1% in the United States!

Existing-Home Sales Record Another Big Gain, Inventories Continue to Shrink

Washington, November 23, 2009

Driven by the first-time buyer tax credit, existing-home sales showed another big gain in October with a strong uptrend established over the past seven months, while inventories continue to decline, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – surged 10.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate¹ of 6.10 million units in October from a downwardly revised pace of 5.54 million in September, and are 23.5 percent above the 4.94 million-unit level in October 2008. Sales activity is at the highest pace since February 2007 when it hit 6.55 million.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, was surprised at the size of the gain. “Many buyers have been rushing to beat the deadline for the first-time buyer tax credit that was scheduled to expire at the end of this month, and similarly robust sales may be occurring in November,” he said. “With such a sale spike, a measurable decline should be anticipated in December and early next year before another surge in spring and early summer.”

Now that the tax credit has been extended and expanded, potential buyers have until April 30 to have a contract in place. “There is still a large pent-up demand that can be tapped before the tax credit expires. Our recent consumer survey further shows that 13 percent of successful first-time buyers had a previous contract that was cancelled or fell through – there likely are many more buyers who were attempting to purchase but simply ran out of time,” Yun said.

Historically low interest rates also are boosting the market. “Mortgage interest rates last month were the third lowest on record dating back to 1971,” Yun noted. According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 4.95 percent in October from 5.06 percent in September; the rate was 6.20 percent in October 2008. Last week, Freddie Mac reporter the 30-year rate dropped to 4.83 percent.

NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz., said strong demand by first-time buyers is creating some unusual conditions. “In parts of the country, especially in Southwestern states but also in Florida and suburban Washington, D.C., we’ve been getting many reports of multiple bids in the lower price ranges with foreclosed properties getting absorbed quickly,” she said….

Check out the full National Association of Realtors article by clicking HERE!

Major expansion plans for DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus. Some plans already approved!

Huge score for DePaul

NO DISSENT | City planners OK new music, theater schools in Lincoln Park

November 20, 2009

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com

DePaul University’s schools of theater and music would finally have the world-class facilities to match their top-notch talent, thanks to a 10-year master plan for the Lincoln Park campus approved Thursday.

Without a word of dissent, the Chicago Plan Commission signed off on DePaul’s ambitious plan to build new schools for theater and music, a new academic center, and to redevelop Fullerton Avenue with a hotel, student housing and market-rate housing.

The project — with a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars — calls for closing Kenmore Avenue to vehicles between Fullerton and Belden to improve student safety, add landscaping and create a greater “campus feel.” Spectator stands, new dugouts and press box facilities also are planned for Wish Field.

“Those two schools have some of the finest faculty in the world and some of the finest students in the country. And they’re literally performing in spaces with dropped ceilings and walls that bleed sound,” said the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, DePaul’s president.

“It’s not where you learn how to play an instrument. It’s not where you learn how to sing. We need a space where musicians [and actors] can be properly trained.”

The new music school won’t come soon enough for clarinet performance major Philip Espe. But it’s still a dream come true.

“I walk into the practice rooms at 10 a.m. any morning. There’s no place for me to practice. I’m sometimes in rehearsal for six hours a day, and there’s no space. It’s incredibly small. The practice rooms are not acoustically sound,” Espe said.

Holtschneider assured the Plan Commission that there would be no influx of students at the already-cramped Lincoln Park campus….

 

To read the full Chicago Sun Times article about the expansion, click HERE!

Design change for Chicago’s Grant Park and Northerly Island. This would be a great HGTV show!

Northerly Island, Grant Park have big changes in store

Both getting fresh designs — maybe for the better

A design team recently held a public workshop for remaking Northerly Island, the 91-acre peninsula that once was home to Meigs Field. The team was led by JJR landscape architects of Chicago and including Studio Gang Architects, the Chicago firm responsible for the spectacular new Aqua tower. One of the ideas floated at that forum was integrating the peninsula’s massive Charter One concert pavilion into a hillside as part of an effort to create a more naturalistic landscape. (Tribune photo by Alex Garcia / November 10, 2009)

Blair Kamin CITYSCAPES

November 20, 2009

They are two of the most contested pieces of ground on Chicago’s lakefront — the first, where the Chicago Children’s Museum wants to build its controversial kiddie bunker; the second, where Mayor Richard M. Daley executed his infamous “midnight raid” and shut down Meigs Field.

Big changes are in store for both. And — hold your breath — they might even turn out for the better.

The Chicago Park District on Wednesday hired the highly regarded New York City landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to redesign 25 acres in Grant Park’s northeast corner, an area that encompasses the dreary Daley Bicentennial Plaza and, within it, the proposed site of the mostly subterranean Children’s Museum.

As part of the project, which will renovate the East Monroe Street Garage below Daley Bicentennial Plaza, just about everything in the plaza — grass, shrubs and sidewalks — will be ripped up. In turn, the park will get a completely new layout, including a children’s play area of up to 5 acres.

Meanwhile, on Nov. 10, a design team led by JJR landscape architects of Chicago and including Studio Gang Architects, the Chicago firm responsible for the spectacular new Aqua tower, held a workshop for remaking Northerly Island, the 91-acre peninsula that once was home to Meigs Field. Among the ideas floated at that forum: integrating the peninsula’s massive Charter One concert pavilion into a hillside as part of an effort to create a more naturalistic landscape.

That the Chicago Park District has engaged such talented designers is a sign of how much Millennium Park and its Lurie Garden have raised the standards for landscape architecture along the lakefront. But given the bitter controversy that has preceded them, no one should expect either project to travel a smooth road.

The 58-year-old Van Valkenburgh, who was chosen from a field of 29 firms, brings to Chicago a long roster of acclaimed projects, such as Teardrop Park, a 1.75-acre public space that is expertly sandwiched between banal residential high-rises in lower Manhattan. The park is highlighted by massive bluestone walls that evoke the wild, rocky topography of upstate New York. It also contains features that don’t look as though they were made by nature (or God), like a 25-foot-long slide in a children’s play area.

This tension encapsulates Van Valkenburgh’s approach, which respects but does not slavishly follow the picturesque urban landscapes of great 19th century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. At the same time, a Van Valkenburgh park is not likely to be as intense as Millennium Park and its oversize pieces of public art. For Chicago, he said, “we’re talking about something that’s neither Olmstedian nor Millennium Parkish.”

“One element that we’re interested in,” he explained, “is a children’s play area. We’re operating under the expectation that (the Children’s Museum) is going ahead. We’re interested in how you draw some of those kids to a very different kind of play space, something you wouldn’t buy out of a catalog.”

Typical playgrounds, he added, “keep children busy, but they’re not memorable, they’re not inspiring.” The Chicago children’s play area, he said, might be anywhere from 2 to 5 acres in size, making it a “significant but not dominating” part of the park. He wants the play area to engage adults as well as children, and to be designed for a wide range of children, not just aggressive boys….

To read the full Chicago Tribune article on the new park plans, click HERE!

Public meeting TONIGHT at Spertus Institute on future plans for Northerly Island.

Plans take new look at Northerly Island

With 2016 dreams dashed, what should become of Meigs site?

November 10, 2009

BY LISA DONOVAN Staff Reporter ldonovan@suntimes.com

A month after Mayor Daley’s Olympic team washed out in the race for the 2016 Games, the tide has shifted as planners focus on Northerly Island’s long-term place in the lakefront landscape.

Before Chicago lost to Rio de Janeiro in the Olympic contest, the Park District was eyeing how to develop the 91-acre man-made island east of Soldier Field, while making the former site of Meigs Field a temporary home for Olympic venues for beach volleyball, the canoe and kayak slalom courses and even an observation point for sailing contests.

Today, Chicago Park District officials are holding a public meeting downtown to unveil a series of sketches for the site, pen-to-paper ideas that will serve as a conversation starter, says Gia Biagi, director of planning and development for the Chicago Park District. “We’re not holding up a particular concept,” she said. “But looking at what are the components of a great park.”

The Park District hired a design team that includes Studio Gang Architects, best known for the Aqua Building at the Lakeshore East site near downtown, to sketch out ideas — though officials did not release the cost of the work.

One thought is to extend the swimming and beach areas on the eastern edge of the island. Another is to carve out portions of the “island” — really a peninsula — creating bays or coves or even inland waterways….

Check out the full Chicago Sun Times article by clicking HERE!

Hollywood coming to Chicago. 2nd largest movie studio in the United States will be in Chicago!

Chicago gets $80 million studio complex!

Reported by ReelChicago.com

Toronto studio owner buys Ryerson Steel property.

A $5 million state grant approved Friday set in motion the purchase of the former Ryerson steel property that will be converted into the biggest state-of- the-art film studio outside of Hollywood.

Cinespace Chicago, located on 50 acres of prime city property on the Near Southwest Side, is now under construction and one 330,000-sq. ft. stage could be ready for action by January.

Cinespace Chicago owner, Nick Mirkopoulos, is a highly successful and respected Toronto studio owner, who will invest an estimated $80 million to convert the six contiguous buildings into a film and TV production center.

When completed in 12-15 months, Cinespace Chicago will create a projected 6,000 jobs.

“A big studio like this is long overdue,” said John Coli, Sr., secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 727 and president of Teamsters Joint Council 25, who has worked tirelessly behind-the-scenes for several years in an effort to convince a major studio owner with a successful track record to establish a film complex in Chicago.

The Ryerson campus, as it is called, consists of 1.3 million sq. ft. of buildings under one roof, situated on 48.5 acres of land between Ogden and Western Avenues, a scant five miles southwest from State and Madison Streets in the Loop.

Mirkopoulos reportedly paid $18 million for the property. An asking price of $22-$26 million had been listed with an industrial real estate broker for the past 18 months.

Production business is expected almost immediately.

After receiving news of the state grant approval Friday, Mirkopoulos on Monday flew his architect to Chicago to meet with contractors to immediately begin converting one of the property’s six 572×572-sq. ft. buildings into a sound stage, which is expected to be completed within an estimated 60 days.

“They claim they will have business for the studio by then,” said Coli.

Chicago will be an extremely attractive place to produce movies and TV shows, said Coli, thanks to unions that have committed to providing lower costs for filmmakers and Illinois’ sustainable 30% tax credit….

Thank you to the IFP Chicago website for the article.  To check out the full article, click HERE!

Block 37 stores to open by Thanksgiving. Good news for Chicago’s State Street!

Block 37 signs 13 new tenants, plans to open by Thanksgiving

By Sandra M. Jones

Tribune staff reporter

3:41 p.m. CST, November 3, 2009

Joseph Freed and Associates LLC said it signed leases for 13 new tenants at Block 37, the embattled retail development that has been threatened with foreclosure.

The announcement of the new leases comes as developer Freed fights a move by lead lender Bank of America to put the retail and transit project at 108 N. State Street. into receivership less than a month before the mall’s first shops were set to open.

The new tenants — which include Sephora, Michelle Tan and Comic Vault — are a mix of chains and local shops aimed at satisfying the city’s redevelopment agreement to put unique retail in the famous city block.

Freed, which is contesting the foreclosure lawsuit, said it plans to open the mall by Thanksgiving and complete the project by the end of 2010, “assuming the bank cooperates on necessary funding.”

The banks filed a foreclosure suit last month, claiming that Freed essentially ran out of money to complete construction. .

Among the new tenants:

Sephora, the beauty chain owned by Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, will open a 6,000 square foot store on the first floor of the four-story indoor mall with access onto State Street.

L’Occitane en Provence, a body care products chain, will occupy 750 square feet on the first floor.

Michelle Tan, a local women’s clothing designer, agreed to lease 650 square feet on the second level….

 

Check out the full Chicago Tribune article by clicking HERE!  This is great news for the retailers getting ready for the Christmas shopping season and there’s even more information on the new stores going into Block 37 in the article!

No injuries reported in a Chicago residential high rise fire!

Fire breaks out in building on Chicago River

November 3, 2009 3:45 PM

Smoke rises from the roof from a 48-story residential building at 233 E. Wacker Drive. (Andrew L. Wang / Chicago Tribune)

Firefighters responded this afternoon to a fire in a residential building near Columbus and Wacker Drives. A plume of black smoke could be seen coming from the roof of the building before the fire was brought under control.

No injuries were reported at the 48-story building. The fire broke out about 3 p.m. in a cooling tower on the building’s roof, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Quention Curtis. The blaze was confined to the roof, he said.

Crews had the fire under control by about 3:30 p.m., and it was put out by about 3:45 p.m., fire officials said.

– Staff report

Thanks to Chicago Tribune’s Breaking News for this article.  For the article on the Tribune website, click HERE!

The new Apple store to play a key role in the Clybourn Red Line station!

Doors will open on the right at the Apple stop

By: Thomas A. Corfman October 26, 2009

The North and Clybourn station on the CTA’s Red Line may become the iStop.

In exchange for Apple Inc. spending more than $4 million to renovate the scruffy station, the Chicago Transit Authority gave the maker of MacBooks and iPhones first dibs on naming rights, if the agency decides to go that route. It’s apparently the first such deal ever by the cash-strapped CTA. Apple also gets the exclusive right to buy all the ad space in the station, at 1555 N. Clybourn Avenue.

The CTA has been considering naming-rights agreements since at least 2005, but the idea is seemingly getting another look as President Richard Rodriguez scrambles to avoid hiking fares and cutting services to cover next year’s projected budget deficit of $178 million. A CTA spokeswoman did not respond to questions.

Cities nationwide are increasingly looking at corporate sponsorships to ease budget woes. The risk to the CTA is that slapping corporate logos on stations could confuse riders and cheapen the city’s image, and make only a small dent in the massive financial problems….

Check out the full Crain’s Chicago Business article by clicking HERE!  From driving by the construction zone, you can see the general design of the store, which is different from the picture below.  So far, I like where they’re going with it but I hope they keep it very light, open, and covered in glass.

Hopefully VERY preliminary plans...