Cladding is Darn Near Done at 633 South LaSalle

Top off your glass for you? That’s what they’re doing at 633 South LaSalle, as the curtain wall/cladding/whatever you wanna call it rises up Q Investment Partners’ 18-story residential tower in the South Loop. Only about one-and-a-half floors remain in need of glazing.

Clark Construction has been working on this FitzGerald-designed development for awhile now, before and after a slight pause in the financing game, with the goal of having residents begin moving in next year. It looks more and more every day like they’ll easily meet that deadline.

As you’ll see by clicking on the Melrose Ascension Capital link above, 633 South LaSalle will have units starting under $1,700/month. For being so close to The Loop, that seems like a nice price.

Glass goes up, tower crane comes down, at 633 South LaSalle

Carl, working high atop the South Loop, taking down the tower crane.

There’s glass, but alas, the tower crane has passed. And so 633 South LaSalle attains a couple milestones of progress.

Friday and Saturday were the crane-removal days, as you can see in Carl’s Instagram video above (give him a LIKE). That’s Central Contractors Service’s rig out there wrapping up the dismantling. As for glass installation, that’s been going on for a couple weeks now.

As a reminder: Q Investment Partners and Melrose Ascension Capital are adding 358 beds (apartments and co-living units) to the South Loop, next to Metra’s LaSalle Street station. As long as all goes to plan from here on out, those beds should be sleep-in-able early in 2025.

Photos were taken on the second day of crane removal, April 6:

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.


633 South LaSalle has topped out in the South Loop

Clark Construction’s Instagram announcement that 633 South LaSalle has topped out.

633 South LaSalle has topped out in the South Loop. Clark Construction said so on their Instagram (and Twitter) account Friday afternoon, stating the project had topped out earlier in the week. The 18-story tower will have apartments and co-living spaces.

Congratulations are in order for the entire 633 team, including:

Q Investment Partners – Developer
Melrose Ascension Capital – Developer
Clark Construction – General Contractor
Adjustable Concrete Construction – Concrete Contractor
FitzGerald – Architects
Berkelhamer – Architects

Completion is expected in 2025.

Fear not. 633 South LaSalle is back in action

633 South LaSalle under bright sunny skies.

If you compare today’s photo gallery with those from our last visit to 633 South LaSalle, you may be a tad taken aback by the elevation change. You’d be forgiven, as this one seemed to go on a brief sabbatical over the winter.

Chicago YIMBY has the story of some new financial arrangements that assure 633 South LaSalle will continue on to completion.

The Team:

Q Investment Partners – Developer
Melrose Ascension Capital – Developer
Clark Construction – General Contractor
Adjustable Concrete Construction – Concrete Contractor
FitzGerald – Architects
Berkelhamer – Architects

The Permits:

Tower crane – issued 03/24/2023
Caissons – issued 04/25/2023
Full building – issued 06/01/2023
Passenger elevators – issued 09/06/2023
Hoist – issued 09/08/2023

The Pics (taken 03/02/2024):

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.

Progress Update: 633 South LaSalle

The 633 South LaSalle construction crane towers over the South Loop.

Some progress photos at 633 South LaSalle, as Clark Construction and Adjustable Concrete Construction continue work on the Berkelhamer-designed 18-story, 117-unit student-living tower in the South Loop.

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.

633 South LaSalle (at long last) puts up a tower crane and rises out of the ground [Corrected]

This post has been corrected to show Q Investment Partners of Singapore as the developer.

The tower crane at 633 South LaSalle in the South Loop.

633 South LaSalle has avoided a forced vacation to Spireville and is now underway in the Printers Row area of the South Loop. The tower crane is up, the core has gone 3-D, and any and all delays — pandemic-related or otherwise — are a thing of the past. Thrilled and relieved to see this one get going.

This will be an 18-story co-living development, consisting of 117 units and 381 beds. Why co-living in the South Loop? Students. Roosevelt University, Columbia College, DePaul, East-West University, etc. Lots of kids need lots of places to stay.

Tip o’the cap to Chicago Cityscape for letting me know the tower crane was up.

Here are the players at 633 South LaSalle:

Clark Construction is the general contractor.
Adjustable Concrete Construction is the concrete contractor.
Berkelhamer is the design architect.
FitzGerald is the architect of record.
Q Investment Partners is the developer.

Was I hallucinating when it came to old permits here? There were a bunch of them, I swear. But now there are only three on the City of Chicago website:

Tower crane, issued 3/24/2023
Caissons, issued 4/25/2023
Full build, issued 6/1/2023

Here are some pics. Some much more compelling pics than the bare lot I’ve visited in recent months:

633 South La Salle has the permits to get started. Has it started?

Construction can be confusing when you don’t pay close attention. There’s a world of activity on a site one day, then the next day all the equipment is gone, the dirt’s been smoothed over, and it looks like the lot has been abandoned.

And that’s my segue for the first visit to 633 South LaSalle in the South Loop. 633 got its first permit back in May of 2019, allowing for construction of an 18-story, 117-unit residential tower. Then, crickets. That permit was reinstated in April of 2020, but, pandemic.
Now, two new permits have been issued this spring: the first, for caissons, on March 31. The second, for the full building, on May 10. These two latest permits have a new general contractor: Clark Construction. Berkelhamer and FitzGerald are the architecture firms. The Collective in NYC is the developer.

So that’s the permit sitch. What I can’t speak to is the progress. Like I said, construction can be confusing if you’re not paying attention. The current state of the 633 South LaSalle site looks like the caisson aftermath, when the slate looks clean and ready for foundations to be dug. But I can’t find anyone with caisson photos on the web. (I’m not the only one taking photos of such things, you know.) As a result, I can’t even tell you whether work has begun here.

What I can tell you is where to find more info about this co-living development:
Chicago YIMBY
REJournals
Urbanize Chicago
Real Deal Chicago

Bonus gallery: The buildings on either side of 633 are magnificent.



Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.