513 South Damen is topped out and very glassy

513 South Damen and its sister building, Atrio.

When last (and first) I visited 513 South Damen in the Illinois Medical District, I was surprised at how quickly it had grown. Last week’s 360-degree tour shows it to be topped at 22 stories, and glass has reached the eighth level above the parking podium.

513 South Damen is:
A 279-unit apartment building
A development from Marquette Companies
A design by Brininstool + Lynch
A project of Power Construction

513 South Damen is *how* tall already?

Marquette Companies’ 513 South Damen rises in the Illinois Medical District

Maybe it’s been longer than I realized since 513 South Damen got started, but it surprised me last Monday to see how much progress has been made. But I guess that’s what “progress” means, eh?

The empty 513 South Damen lot the last time I walked by, in October of 2021.

513 South Damen is a 22-story, 279-unit apartment tower from Marquette Companies, who’ve recently put up Evo Union Park and Park Fulton in the far-West Loop. The other two big players on those two projects, general contractor Power Construction and design architect Brininstool + Lynch, round out the 513 team as well.

513 South Damen received:
the caisson permit on 7-26-2021
the tower crane permit on 10-13-2021
the foundation permit on 10-29-2021
the full build permit on 12-17-2021

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Ashland Avenue was in Rush University Medical Center’s way. They got over it.

The new pedestrian bridge at Rush University Medical Center.

This past weekend, the city closed off one block of South Ashland Avenue in the Illinois Medical District to allow Power Construction could lift a pedestrian bridge into place. The bridge connects the new Joan and Paul Rubschlager Building to Rush University Medical Center on the west side of Ashland.

After breaking ground in June of 2019, the 10-story, 480,000-square-foot outpatient care facility is expected to open to patients in 2022 opening. It is a design by West Loop architecture firm Nia Architects in collaboration with HDR.

You might have noticed the bridge on site for several weeks, waiting for liftoff.

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Progress Update: The Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics at UI Health

UI Health’s Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics

The tower crane at 1009 S. Wood St. in the Medical District has finished lifting steel on the 200,000-suare-foot Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics for UI Health. You can tell by the ceremonial Christmas tree that’s been placed atop the final steel beam.

That tower crane will still be around for awhile. Though all the steel is in place, the cladding panels for the building will all be lifted into place by said tower crane; it should stick around for another 2-3 months.

Shive-Hattery Architecture & Engineering and ZGF Architects are both involved in this design, while Pepper Construction is the general contractor.

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Progress Update: The Gateway Apartments

Construction at The Gateway Apartments.

We checked in on The Gateway Apartments at 2050 West Ogden this week. Global Builders’ lone tally on the Chicago Tower Crane Survey is rising above the fenceline for your viewing pleasure.

Reminder: This is an 11-story, 161-unit apartment development in the Illinois Medical District, which looks like it could become a very busy construction zone in the next couple years. Keep an eye out over there.

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Tower Crane Drone Video from Global Builders

Drones are cool. Tower cranes are cool. Combine the two, and it’s cool squared, times two, to the third power. That’s how math works.

Global Builders put together a drone video of their tower crane going up at 2050 West Ogden in the Illinois Medical District.

Check it out. (I need to get me one of those. A drone, not a tower crane. Although . . .)

Make it 12: The stub at 2050 West Ogden has sprouted a tower crane

The wait is over.

May’s 12th tower crane is up and ready for a workout at The Gateway Apartments. Now Global Builders can begin verticality on the 11-story, 161-unit building.

Got there a little late Friday, as only the finishing touches remained. No matter. I still took too many pics.



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The Gateway Apartments tower crane is halfway here

Late Wednesday afternoon at The Gateway Apartments tower-crane build.

It’s (almost) here! Global Builders’ tower crane we’ve been waiting to sprout (it *is* spring, after all) at 2050 West Ogden for The Gateway Apartments began its climb Wednesday. And while Thursday’s weather forecast doesn’t look particularly promising, Crane Completion is still expected this week. We’ll take another jaunt down to the Illinois Medical District in the next couple days so you all can see it fully erected and ready to lift the heavy stuff.

The rest of the parts are in place.


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Full permit, no tower crane, at 2050 W. Ogden

A stub awaits its tower crane at The Gateway Apartments.

Fellas, you’re gonna want that cowbell.”

To paraphrase Bruce Dickinson (yes, *the* Bruce Dickinson) you’re also gonna want that tower crane.

The Gateway Apartments at 2050 West Ogden in the Illinois Medical District got its full-build permit last week, several weeks after planting a tower crane in the ground. Alas, that tower crane has yet to be erected, but I’m willing to assume Global Builders knows what they’re doing out there. It’s what they do. I just get a little anxious when our tower crane count dips near single digits. We’re gonna want that tower crane.

A design by Avondale’s Piekarz Associates, Gateway Apartments will bring 161 rental units atop ground-floor retail space to its 11 stories.



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Here’s one I missed: The Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics at UI Health

The elusive tower crane at UI Health’s Outpatient Surgery Center & Specialty Clinics.

I don’t know how long there’s been a tower crane at 1009 S. Wood St. in the Medical District, but I know when I found out about it: just now. The University of Illinois Hospital is building the 200,000-suare-foot Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics at this location, and since this is a state university, there are no City of Chicago construction permits.

Shive-Hattery Architecture & Engineering and ZGF Architects are both involved in the design, and both make their first appearances here at the B.U.C. Pepper Construction is the general contractor. Sincerest apologies to Pepper for missing their tower crane in the March survey.

Shoutout to UI Health/UIC for the fence banners that show everyone involved in this project. Sure makes my job easier. Except for that whole noticing-the-tower-crane-in-the-sky part.

You can find a wealth of information (including a construction cam!) about the Outpatient Surgery Center & Specialty Clinics below, thanks to the miracle of copy & paste. And then, of course, a few construction photos follow.



OPENING FALL 2022, the Outpatient Surgery Center & Specialty Clinics (OSC) will be a new, advanced care center at UI Health. The 200,000-square-foot facility will feature six floors of patient care space that will accommodate the increasing volume and complexity of surgical care, education, and research at the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics and its health science partners at UIC.

The OSC will be a new home for state-of-the-art care, including:


The new Outpatient Surgery Center & Specialty Clinics at UI Health is set to welcome its first patients in the fall of 2022.

Visit this page any time to check on construction progress via the live feed.  Click here to view full screen version. Interior and exterior renderings of the building can be viewed here.

Latest Project Updates

  • Basement and foundations have been completed!
  • Structural steel erection commenced: Click to see the progress
  • Next: Structural Steel erection to be completed mid-summer
  • Next: Building exterior to be completed late-Fall/early-Winter  

Experience. Experts. Convenience.

The Outpatient Surgery Center & Specialty clinics will be a new home for outpatient surgery procedures currently performed at the University of Illinois Hospital. The Bruno & Sallie Pasquinelli Outpatient Surgery Center, located on the third floor, will feature eight operating rooms and a 24-bay Pre-/Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU), opening needed space for improvements and expansion of the existing inpatient surgery department. This new center will be connected to the main hospital by an enclosed bridge across West Taylor Street.

A number of outpatient clinics also will be calling the OSC their new home:

There will be additional spaces provided to other outpatient clinics based on strategic goals and objectives of the organization.