Chicago High-Rise Reaches Completion

320 South Canal. Image courtesy of Clark Construction Group

The 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot Class A office tower 320 South Canal, in Chicago’s West Loop and adjacent to the city’s historic Union Station, has reached substantial completion. Clark Construction Group is the general contractor.

The project was developed by Riverside Investment & Development Co., has BMO Harris Bank as the anchor tenant, and includes the addition of the largest public park in the West Loop.

320 South Canal is directly south of the 1925 Union Station and features a fitness center, conference facility and more than 8,000 feet of outdoor amenity spaces, including four private terraces. The architect was Goettsch Partners.

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The building connects to Union Station via an underground pedway, with links to the Metra train concourse, Amtrak trains and Loop Link CTA bus lines at the Union Station Transit Center. 320 South Canal is also located near several major expressways and includes two levels of underground parking.

About three-fifths of the 2.5-acre site is set aside as public open space, featuring a large central lawn, pedestrian walkways and a variety of smaller spaces for outdoor activities. The office tower’s east and west façades showcase V-shaped structural transfers, which open up the ground floor and help connect the building and the park.

According to Tyler Lamkey, senior vice president at Riverside Investment & Development, the firm’s goal was to maximize the benefits of this prime location.

Tenants began occupying the tower in January, and the park will open to the public this June.

Back to the office?

The Chicago downtown office market opened the year with “near flat absorption,” with active leasing in Class A and trophy buildings almost outbalancing negative absorption in Class B or lower space, according to a first-quarter report from JLL. The biggest winners were newer buildings in the West Loop and Fulton Market, which helped push average rental rates higher for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

As in so many other CBD office markets, the near-term prospects will depend on companies’ space needs as more employees return to the office. In Chicago, there was a surge in that direction in early March, JLL says.

In January of last year, Vista Property Group obtained $30.7 million from Bank OZK to both renovate an historic five-story building at 601 W. Randolph St. and build a 15-story boutique office building next door, at 609 W. Randolph.