Chicago Real Estate News & Neighborhood Notes

Plans for a very impressive new project that could potentially bring a new high-rise to the highly coveted air rights space of Union Station have once again popped up on the radar, as first reported by both Crain’s and Curbed early last week.  

The project is being planned by Chicago-based developer Sterling Bay, and should construction finally move forward, the finished product could be a 958-foot high skyscraper to the Loop that looks to be one of the more dynamic commercial towers to hit downtown Chicago in quite some time. 

The design of the proposed Union Station tower is from the legendary and local architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which is behind countless high-profile projects all over the world. Once finished, the building could hold as much as 2 million square feet of office space, and talks are reportedly already underway to bring several anchor tenants to the building, which would no doubt help get the project moving forward. 

As of now, nothing has been approved or is guaranteed. However, despite the redevelopment of Union Station’s air rights having been a topic of discussion for years now, Amtrak, the rail operator that currently controls the space, is expected to announce a short list of master developers that could ultimately end up developing the project sometime later this year.