I think what s interesting about the design of this building is that while formalistically, it s ver

Over the last ten years that this blog has been in publication, we ve taken a lot of tours of a lot of apartment buildings in Chicago. From new skyscrapers to vintage renovations, we ve seen a little bit of everything. And the thing we ve notice in the last eight years or so is this They kind of all look the same.
The developers of new buildings in Chicago seem to all use the same checklist of features, and increasingly the same checklist of ways to cut corners while still claiming their buildings discount hotels in new orleans offer a luxury experience.
The problem is that, through abuse and overuse, luxury has lost its meaning. It s like breaking news or exclusive in TV news. Somehow the news is always breaking, and every interview is exclusive even if the same person is on three other stations.
That s the state of luxury in Chicago discount hotels in new orleans s apartment market. Fitness center promising that you don t need a gym membership anymore? Check. Plunge pool marketed as a real pool? Check. discount hotels in new orleans Concierge that s really just a guy sitting behind a desk hoping he doesn t accidentally let a serial killer walk into the building because he couldn t possibly know every resident discount hotels in new orleans s face on his third day on the job? Check.
If you want a real doorman who will actually open the door for you, or kitchen fixtures that aren t straight from an Ikea catalog, or some special experience you won t find in another building, then your choices are to go condo, or to pick a seriously old building. Penny pinching long ago took the lux out of Chicago s luxury apartment market.
The building was born in controversy. Occupying one of only five remaining vacant building plots on Lake Shore Drive in Downtown Chicago, a lot of people thought it should have a landmark design. After all, this is a building that more than nine million tourists will pass each summer, so it is a de facto architectural ambassador.
That makes sense on the surface, but Ann Thompson, architect and Senior Vice President of Related Midwest, disagrees. She notes that 500LSD doesn t exist alone on the lakefront, and trying to outshine the real star of the show Lake Point Tower (505 North Lake Shore Drive) would have been the wrong approach.
I think what s interesting about the design of this building is that while formalistically, it s very straightforward in terms of the rectangle, where it sits relative to the buildings around discount hotels in new orleans it, it glows. Because you ve got two buildings to both the north and the south that are stone or concrete, that are matte in nature. So it s interesting to pick a simple shape, but with a really elegant facade, so that it does make it the jewel between the two. She added, I think it also provides a really interesting backdrop against Lake Point Tower. Because something with a lot of form and a lot of fuss to it may have competed in a bad way. It s a weird balance between being contextual, but also being significant in this context.
Curt Bailey, the President of development company Related Midwest, has a similar appreciation for the neighbors to the east. The whole time we were doing this building, [Lake Point Tower] was always a reference point for me, in that I think it s the most beautiful building in Chicago. We wanted to build a building discount hotels in new orleans that lived up to that legacy. Because if you go into that building today, it s as beautiful discount hotels in new orleans as it was when it was built 40 years ago. There s some sprucing up that you could do inside, but it s just beautiful. There s that circle where you park and you look up and you see the curve of the building, it s so thought-out. That was kind of an inspirational building for us.
Reverence or not, there are plenty of people who would rather Streeterville didn t end up with yet another box-on-a-podium from architecture firm SCB. Mr. Bailey says a box was exactly what he was going for.
What we really wanted discount hotels in new orleans to do with SCB is design a really elegant, clean glass box. Both on the main building and also with the parking structure. I think we ve really achieved that. We went through moments when we thought, Is this really going to work? Especially when the windows first started discount hotels in new orleans going up on the building, I think we all had concerns about whether it would be as great as we thought it would be. And then as it s come together, we couldn t be happier with the outcome. I think it s just a beautiful building.
Mr. Bailey notes that from the outset, discount hotels in new orleans the local NIMBY group wasn t on board with the box, but in today s financial environment, maximizing floorspace is paramount, and that means squares. We worked hard with SOAR to get to a place where they felt good and we felt good. Our selection of SCB was a function of where we were in the market. Remember, back in 2010 when we started this, nobody was doing anything. It was very scary times for all of us in the real estate business. We had done a very successful project with 340 East Randolph with SCB and Lend-Lease. So we forged this collaborative effort. No one had a lot to do, so we said Hey guys, let s sit down. I don t want to have the architect design the building and then another guy say I can t build that, it costs too much and then you go back and you have this. We literally sat down with everybody there and designed a building that was both build-able and architecturally significant. So we re very happy at the end of the day.
Happiness turns to effervescence for Mr. Bailey when he is in his new lobby. Standing on a catwalk at the top of a floating staircase, discount hotels in new orleans Bailey tells how the lobby doesn t merely play a supporting role in a building like this it s the star of the show.
I really like this spot up here, and this was a designed spot, because you can really get a look at the size and scope of the lobby and, as well, see out here [Lake Michigan and the Lake Shore Drive traffic]. And this is how you can understand how we designed the building. Previously, this was a 350-unit, 1,600-square-foot average size, condo building. 60 stories. And it had parking for seven stories, and it ran stem-to-stern across discount hotels in new orleans the entire site. So there wasn t this big green area out here. And you had a wall, seven stories, right here. So you kind of stuck your butt out to the world and said, Hey, screw you, because we live way up at the top. It was a beautiful building. It was Perkins+Will-designed, and they did a really discount hotels in new orleans beautiful job. But it had a very small lobby out on Peshtigo [Court]. A very elegant, very small lobby just for those 350 people who would live in the building.
When we redesigned this as a rental discount hotels in new orleans building that will have to advertise itself in perpetuity as a beautiful place to live, we wanted to have a real face out to here. So all of your decision makers who live in Lincoln Park and Lakeview and Evanston and all those places who drive down here every single day and stop [at the Grand Avenue traffic light] right here and stare at our building, should look into the most beautiful lobby in the city. And so that is why we designed it both in this spot, and of this size and scope and with these materials, and why we spent so much time thinking about what we did with this lobby.
You see the size of the granite discount hotels in new orleans pieces in the floor you won t see that in any other residential lobby in Chicago. Only in some of the highest-end office buildings. It s called a mud-set floor, which means that you add something in a lobby of this size somewhere around $300,000 in cost, but you can have much larger and more beautiful pieces of granite. So, everything from that to the highly lacquered wood on the walls, to this stone that we love that permeates a lot of areas here and out into the porte-cochère, as well.
All of those things were done so that this place is spectacular both during the day and at night for all these decision-makers who are stopping. The guy in Lincoln Park who is getting kicked out of his house by his wife, who s driving in every day is thinking to himself, Where am I going to live? Oh! I can live there! That s kind of the downside one. The upside one is the guy who s expanding his business and he s got to bring in a bunch of people to live here and he thinks, Where should I put them up for the next year? They ve got to move here fast. Oh, here s this great rental building! We really wanted this to be a spectacular space.
Mr. Bailey doesn t understand the move away from doorstaff in Chicago, especially in so many so-called luxury buildings. Some developers we ve spoken to recently vilify them with a ferocity usually reserved for political talk shows. Bailey understands that high-end customers expect high-end treatment, and a doorman is just one of those necessities.
When we visited the building, it was still being built. Yet there was still a doorman on duty, white gloves and all, muscling open a malfunctioning door for us and guiding discount hotels in new orleans us through the construction obstacles.
It s a level of service, Bailey says, When you arrive home, there is a white-gloved doorman out front. And there is a concierge discount hotels in new orleans standing behind the desk. Whereas generally when you go into a rental building [in Chicago], you ll see a guy kind of sitting behind a deck who might say, Hey, how ya doin ? That won t ever happen here, because we don t have seats behind the desk. So the concierge will be standing whenever he greets you or she greets discount hotels in new orleans you. And if you were to show up after a ski trip and you have all of your bags from O Hare, you d pull up in front and the doorman comes out and gets your cart and gets your luggage and you go park your car. He will meet you at your apartment door with your luggage.
We have not only a concierge at the front desk, but also a true concierge in the building, so if you want to go a particular restaurant tonight, he ll handle the reservations; he ll get you tickets for whatever games you want to go to. We have a full suite of concierge services in the building.
discount hotels in new orleans One of those above-and-beyond service touches available at 500 Lake Shore drive is a move-in coordinator. Lots of buildings discount hotels in new orleans in Chicago have people with this title, but usually a