A skyscraper planned for the corner of Lake and Forest in downtown Oak Park — which, at 20 stories, would be the tallest in the village — is switching from hotel and condos to apartments, following a village board decision last Thursday night.
What seemed to concern village trustees most during the meeting last week was the change in design, as the developer is shifting midstream and using a new architect.
Trustee Colette Lueck thinks the change may have made the new structure too noticeable to passersby.
“I’m not an architect, but to me, the first building is not as visible as this building,” she said. “You’re noticing that building in a very dramatic way, where before, because the building was so sleek, there wasn’t a lot to look at. So it did kind of just melt.”
A Chicago-based developer agreed last year to team up with village hall to build a public garage and high-rise at the corner of Lake Street and Forest Avenue. But the project stalled over the past year because of the slumping hotel and condo markets.
Last week, the village board was asked whether it wanted to allow Sertus Capital Partners to switch to rental units, and trustees voted 5-0 in favor. The proposal will now go before the Oak Park Plan Commission, starting Aug. 25, to figure out whether the village wants to give Sertus two zoning variances.
Sertus is currently in a dispute with their previous architectural firm, Epstein, and is switching to San Francisco-based Gensler, which designed the Block 37 development in downtown Chicago.
Brian Vitaoy, an architectural design director for Gensler, said they decided to alter the building’s appearance to gear it more towards apartments. Changes include shifting the two towers a little to give the tenants more views of downtown Chicago, and adding more architectural detail at the base (bricks in one section, and random-patterned windows to add variation).
Gensler felt the skyscraper didn’t need to blend into the sky.
“Maybe we don’t want this to just melt away and that people don’t care about this building,” Vitaoy said. “We want something that interacts with people, something that engages you, something that maybe challenges you, rather than something you walk by and don’t notice.”
The plan commission OK’d the first proposal back in January 2010. This time around, they’ll only discuss the variances needed because of the building’s density (270 apartments) and shortage of parking (288 spaces are provided for tenants in the 588-space garage). Commissioners will not rehash their discussions on parts of the project that remain unchanged, such as the height.
If it’s approved and Sertus can find financing, the developer hopes to break ground in the first half of 2012, and finish building by mid-2014.
