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Shopping Centers Today -> February 2001
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CHICAGO'S NORTH BRIDGE LEADS TO 'GRAND' PLANS
By Edmund Mander
Some have likened the impact of North Bridge on Chicago to the dropping of a huge rock on a pond. The pond, in this case, is the south end of Chicago's North Michigan Avenue, and The Grand Plaza is one of its ripples.
 The Grand Plaza, a mixed-use project under way in Chicago, will be framed by the city's four busiest streets. |
Situated one block away from the mixed-used North Bridge project, The Grand Plaza will consist of 764 high-end apartments in two towers on top of a two-level retail complex. It is one of several mixed-use projects that is expanding and linking communities in the River North neighborhood.
The Grand Plaza's developers make no bones about it: This project and others will owe their existence to North Bridge, which is making the southern end of North Michigan as busy as its more famous northern section. North Bridge serves as a link — hence its name — between two of Chicago's busiest shopping districts, North Michigan and State Street.
"It's [The Grand Plaza] an expansion of the North Bridge," said Camille Julmy, vice chairman and co-founder of U.S. Equities Realty, which is developing The Grand Plaza in partnership with four other companies. He talks of the Nordstrom store that opened late last year in The Shops at North Bridge, together with a planned Bloomingdale's Home Store opposite, as though they are part of his own project. "That is amazing, because it's like you have the two [most sought after] anchor tenants."
But Julmy has another big reason for expecting to see other retailers' customers at The Grand Plaza: Many of them will be leaving their cars at the project's 1,000-car, five-level parking garage.
"A lot of people drive to Michigan Avenue," he noted. "North Michigan Avenue attracts a huge amount of people, so there is an absolute need for parking."
The project, which is going up on a block framed by four of the city's busiest streets — Dearborn, State, Ohio and Grand Avenue — lies next to the main feeder ramp of the Kennedy Expressway (I-90). Visitors coming from out of town to North Michigan Avenue use the ramp, he explained, and each year 15 million cars pass the site.
However, a good many customers will not be coming by car; they'll be there already, either living at The Grand Plaza itself, or in apartments nearby.
"By the time this project is completed," Julmy said, "there will be approximately 8,000 apartments in this block." A total of about 65,000 people will be living within a square mile of The Grand Plaza, and the area also will contain 20,000 hotel rooms and 14.5 million square feet of office space. In addition, the shopping base will include students from the Loyola and Northwestern university campuses.
"We get the residents, we get the office workers, we get the students," Julmy said. The development partners had not signed deals with any tenants at press time, but said they were looking to build a retail component of about 100,000 square feet, comprising service and entertainment tenants. The project is being financed by a $150 million commercial loan from Bank of America.
"We have a good number of real attractive potential restaurants who want to be in the complex," Julmy said.
While most of the retailer spaces would be small, he said he envisions having two larger ones of up to 40,000 square feet each.
Contractors broke ground in November, and the parking portion of the project is scheduled to open at the end of this year. The retail and the apartments will be completed next year.
The Grand Plaza is just one of several major projects undertaken recently by Chicago-based U.S. Equities Realty and its locally based partners. The company, a full-service commercial real estate firm, manages and leases a 40 million-square-foot portfolio. It also provides development management services, and represents and advises tenants. The company's projects in Chicago have included Metra Market, providing 200,000 square feet of retail in the city's West Loop area.
Another partner is The Cataldo/Marovitz Group, a developer that has built more than $1 billion worth of retail, residential and entertainment projects in River North. It is breaking ground this spring on the Millennium Center at 605 North Dearborn, consisting of 350 luxury condominiums and 25,000 square feet of retail. Cataldo/Marovitz also is the builder of 630 North State Street, a mixed-use condominium and retail project.
The two other partners, Near North Properties and Magellan Development Group, both have long track records building residential properties in Chicago. Across the Chicago River they have teamed up to develop the 26-acre Lake Shore East, one of the city's largest new projects, consisting of 4,500 residential units, 2 million square feet of commercial/retail space and 1,500 hotel rooms. Near North will be leasing, marketing and managing the residential portion of The Grand Plaza.
These are great times for Chicago, and people are pouring in to make their homes there, Julmy said.
"That's why the demand and the future are so bright," he said. "It just is a fabulous city."
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