Streeterville | Building Up Chicago

Talk about multi-tasking.

This is Optima Chicago Center II. Designed by David Hovey of Optima. Optima is also the developer, and the general contractor. Keeping it in-house to the extreme.

Located at 220 East Illinois Street in Streeterville, Optima Chicago Center II will be a 54-story, 381-unit apartment tower. It sits next to Optima Chicago Center, next door at 200 East Illinois Street. The first Optima tower stands 42 stories tall, and is also a rental building, with 325 apartments. It opened to residents in 2013.

: Site prep, all the way back in December of 2014.

: May 1, 2015, and not much had been accomplished.

: A shot from April, with really good light.

: An April crane shot.

: Optima Chicago Center II, from Cityfront Plaza Drive.

: This will be the “front” and main entrance of the building.

: “Is it really gonna be green and red?” people have asked. Well, there’s your red glass.

: And there’s your green glass.

: The “back” of the building, along Grand Avenue.

: Gratuitous tower crane shot.

An overview of caisson work at One Bennett Park.

One Bennett Park, a 69-story, 836-foot-tall residential tower coming to a Streeterville neighborhood near you, has already ripped out the park it’s to stand on (don’t worry, it will be back, bigger and better) and is well into the caisson-drilling process.

A rendering of One Bennett Park from GREC Architects.

Designed by New York’s Robert A.M. Stern Architects, with a boost from executive architect GREC Architects of Chicago, One Bennett Park will have a mix of condominiums and apartments. Related Midwest, known recently for building 500 North Lake Shore Drive, and for turning OneEleven from a half-finished, recession-busted skeleton of cement and steel into a gleaming new rental tower, plans to have One Bennett Park finished in 2019. General contractor Lendlease will see to that.