Just over eight months after a city land sale for it was approved, developers of the proposed office tower at 1714-1720 Chicago Ave. have submitted planned development documents for the project.
The documents, dated last Friday, show a design much like the one presented at the time aldermen approved the $4 million sale of the 74-space parking lot on the site.
However, while some text in the proposal describes an 11-story building, which was the height discussed at the time the land sale was approved, floor plans and renderings show a 13 story building that would have four floors of parking for a total of 117 cars and nine office floors.
The developers say they have been approached by potential tenants who could bring several hundred new office-worker jobs to Evanston and that the project would generate more than $1 million annually in new property taxes.
A consultant to the developer says the Class A office market in Evanston now has a vacancy rate of less than 5 percent.
A consultant’s traffic study indicates the street network can accommodate the additional traffic from the development.
The project will require public meetings of the Design and Project Review Committee and the Plan Commission before it reaches the City Council for final action. Those meetings have not yet been scheduled.
And they thought no one would notice
Good catch, Bill. The original proposal was for 14 stories but that was knocked down to 11 to “appease” the community.
Did you check out the names of the developers? Those have changed, too.
Owners
Hi Louise,
I noticed that too. The ownership entities listed are LLCs, which match the names of ones registered in Delaware.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the people behind the legal entities have changed.
But I’m sure we’ll learn more about that as the review process continues.
(You can often learn who’s behind an Illinois LLC just by searching the Secretary of State’s website. Delaware is not as forthcoming with that information.)
— Bill
But wait!
If I recall correctly, the city reduced the price of the property in its original RFP from $5 million to $4 million in exchange for a reduction in building height from 14 to 11 stories. Why is the city still selling the property for $4 million when the building height is now 13 stories? Shouldn’t the property price be increased by $666,666.67? Or the building height reduced as was promised by the developers and the alderman? Just asking…