The West Loop prepares to welcome another 200 rental units along Van Buren Street

There’s so much development taking place in Chicago’s West Loop that it is sometimes hard to keep track of what’s going on. And with the lion’s share of construction happening around the northern portion in Fulton Market, it’s easy to overlook the new residential buildings popping up at the neighborhood’s southern edge, next to the Eisenhower Expressway.

At 1125 W. Van Buren Street, work recently began on a 24-story, 200-unit apartment tower from developer Tandem Partners. The proposal was last on our radar back in 2018 when it went before the Chicago Plan Commission for preliminary zoning approval.

The project—which also includes ground-floor retail space, amenities on the 2nd and 24th floors, and onsite parking for just seven cars—is the second of four apartment buildings looking to flood a roughly two-block stretch of Van Buren with as many as 650 new rental residences.

It will join the existing 300-unit Landmark West Loop high-rise that opened 2017. A 26-story, 351-unit rental tower is in the works for the parcel between those two towers, according to paperwork filed with the city by Related Midwest and the Pizzuti Companies. Meanwhile, Tandem also has approval for a 20-story, 201-unit apartment project at nearby 1050 W. Van Buren.

So why so much residential development right here? Tandem’s website lists the area’s proximity to the Old Post Office, the West Loop, and the Illinois Medical District among its perks. The transit-oriented location is also convenient to two Blue Line stops—which certainly played a role in the project’s low parking count.

In addition to recently breaking ground, 1125 W. Van Buren is also showing off new renderings from Chicago-based architecture firm Antunovich Associates. The latest images still show a glassy building with dark vertical bands and frames around the windows. The design changed only slightly compared to earlier images, with the biggest alteration being the removal of a horizontal break about halfway up the facade.

According to the developer’s description, 1125 W. Van Buren is scheduled for completion in mid-2021. Expect the West Loop project to get a trendy official name (likely a single word) sometime between now and then.

Courtesy Antunovich Associates