PHOTO: Santiago Calatrava LLC 2014
Work stopped on the foundation of the Chicago Spire during the financial crisis, leaving behind a vast hole in the ground on Chicago’s Near North Side.
The tallest building in the Western Hemisphere may soon rise from the empty construction site, if a bankruptcy court approves a deal cut in February between Shelbourne North Water Street LP, owned by Irish developer Garrett Kelleher, and the Related Co. to provide new financing to the condominium development.
Across the country, condominium developer are re-starting old plans and thinking up new ones.
Significant condo developments are underway in the San Francisco Bay Area. In other parts of the country, like Chicago and Washington, D.C., a few boutique condominium properties have opened and are selling well. And larger condo developments, high rises with more than 100 units, are again becoming the norm in South Florida.
“In recent months you’ve started seeing apartment developers lose sites to condominium developers,” says Greg Willett, who heads the research and analysis team at MPF Research.
The reviving condominium will also, eventually, begin to cut into the demand for the most luxurious apartments.
“We are already questioning the depth of demand of the high-end of the multifamily market,” says Willet. “Now you’re going to have to split some of that demand with the condominium developers.”
