Work on the 10-story Evanston Labs office building from Trammell Crow is continuing at the corner of Clark Street and Orrington Avenue downtown.
Workers this week were filling forms for second-story columns with buckets of concrete hoisted by a crane.
The lab building here is one of a couple dozen that Trammell Crow has in various stages of development around the country, often adjacent to university campuses.
The Evanston’s economic development manager, Paul Zalmezak, says the building is expected to be ready for tenant build-outs by the fourth quarter of this year.
Once it’s completed, Trammell Crow officials have said, the new tower is expected to provide workspace for about 650 workers in life science research fields — folks who are likely to have to come into the office every day to perform lab experiments.
They would be a welcome addition to the downtown area, which Zalmezak says had 20,000 to 30,000 office workers arriving each day before the pandemic — many of whom are now working from home.
That’s sharply cut into lunch-time business for many downtown restaurants, leading some to close completely and others to only open in the evening.