The gray stone building across from North Pond in Chicago’s Lincoln Park has a saint’s shrine and was at the center of a multiyear neighborhood battle that stalled one developer’s plans. Shortly, it will be razed to build some of the priciest housing in Chicago.
The property is the now-shuttered Columbus Hospital, which will be torn down to make way for Lincoln Park 2520, a 306-unit condominium complex where prices range from $650 to $1,300 a square foot.
The new project is a far cry from the hospital founded to serve the poor by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, one of the first naturalized Americans to become a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
Mother Cabrini, a native of Italy, founded dozens of institutions, including schools, orphanages and hospitals, in the U.S. over the course of nearly three decades. She died in Chicago in 1917.
Her shrine, still on the property, is in an ornate chapel, owned by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which Mother Cabrini helped found in 1880.
Mother Cabrini may have taken a vow of poverty, but — let’s be honest — she had a good eye for real estate.
In the years after she arrived in the U.S., she managed to buy 450 acres along the Hudson River north of New York City for an orphanage. Later, she dreamed about an orphanage in a beautiful home atop a hill in Seattle and was given one by a patron.
Whether or not she actually chose the site, the Chicago hospital was equally well positioned. Perched at the edge of the North Side’s green front yard, it is midway in a short, but highly desirable residential stretch between Fullerton Avenue and Diversey Parkway. There are buildings by legendary architect Mies van der Rohe at either end.
A victim of the consolidating health-care industry, the hospital closed in 2001. Its three-acre property was bought by Chicago’s condo conversion king Victor Gouletas, head of American Invsco Corp., and an investment group.
Plans for redevelopment ran aground for a variety of reasons, including vigorous opposition from the neighborhood. Last year a joint venture of General Electric Corp.’s pension fund and Chicago-based MB Real Estate Services acquired the property. Pre-construction sales began in March.
More than 100 units, about one-third of the residences, have been sold, helped no doubt by the location and the controversy which gave the project years of free publicity.
The new building, designed by Chicagoan Lucien LaGrange, will be a nod to French architecture, including a 39-story center tower with two shoulders — 21 stories on the south and 30 stories on the north. The higher center core will have a metal-clad mansard roof.
Most units will have balconies or terraces. There will be parking for 625 cars, about 200 in the condo building and the rest in a separate garage. Those buildings, the chapel and a handful of townhouses will encircle a one-acre private park.
Demolition of the current hospital building, but not the chapel, which will remain, will start late this year. First move-ins in the new building are planned for late 2009.
Visitors get a sense of the area’s “pre-war” sensibility on their way to the sales center, ironically located in a modern wing of the old hospital. They walk through a hall decorated with blow-up photographs of vintage Chicago buildings.
After riding the elevator to the 11th floor sales office, the doors open to a wood-paneled reception room where an elaborate model of the project is positioned in front of a window overlooking the park and Chicago’s skyline.
The sales center reeks of money and high-end housing, but on the day I visited you would have thought there was a fire sale. Sales associates hustled from appointment to appointment and a hurried air prevailed.
There are many floor plans; so a serious shopper should spend some time at the touch-screen kiosks before entering the 2,700-square-foot, three-bedroom, 3 1/2 -bath model, which is priced around $2 million as shown.
Visitors enter the model through a spacious foyer with a double-door entry. The public living area is to the right and the sleeping quarters to the left. The public living portion is toward the front of the building, with an open concept living, dining, kitchen and informal sitting or dining area.
Area rugs and furniture arrangements — the formal dining table and a sideboard in one corner and sofas grouped around the optional fireplace — break the space into defined areas.
A 6-foot wide bay window at the front wall juts out to provide views of the park and lake and glimpses of the lakefront north and south.
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Just steps to the right of the bay is the sliding door to a balcony, partially inset into the building and big enough for a lounge chair or two, plants and side tables.
The generous corner kitchen is the most defined room in this open plan. A narrow wall with a closet divides it from the dining and living room area, to the left, while a wide granite peninsula counter acts as a half-wall between the kitchen and what is displayed as an informal sitting area. It is next to the window looking out onto the balcony.
At the rear of the unit, to the left of the foyer, a hallway accesses three side-by-side bedrooms, each with its own bath.
The master bedroom at the corner of the unit comes with a room-size walk-through closet and a marble-laden master bath. There is a small balcony off the bedroom overlooking the private park at the back of the building.
At the other end of the hall from the master suite is a laundry room with a back door out of the residence and into the public corridor.
The finishes are top notch, especially in the kitchen, where luxury brands such as Wolf, Miele and Sub-Zero are shown.
Natural stone is used in the flooring in the master and secondary bathrooms. Those amenities are standard, said Melanie Feddersen, director of sales, so buyers won’t have to do much upgrading.
It is hard to quarrel with that, given the per-square-foot prices.
As with so many condominiums, the two secondary bedrooms are small and the closet space in them is severely limited in comparison to the lavish walk-in closet for the master suite.
One of the nicest features in the model is laundry room, which not only provides access for hauling stuff in and out of the apartment, away from the formal foyer, but has some limited space for storing a vacuum cleaner, mop and pail.
One plus for buyers who don’t want the usual condo is that the building is planned to accommodate buyers who want to combine units. Available choices range from 900-square-foot, one-bedroom, 1 1/2 -bath residences to a four-bedroom. 4 1/2-bath plan with 11,500 square feet, Feddersen said.
One major minus for some buyers may be that not all may be able to park within the building, especially when a space will cost an additional $30,000 to $90,000. Those who love their cars also might want to give serious thought to the potential congestion as vehicles enter or exit the garages on narrow streets at high-traffic times or on weekends when others come to the park to play.
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Lincoln Park 2520
Base price range: $550,000 to $13 million
FACTS AND FIGURES
One- to four-bedroom, 1 1/2- to 4 1/2-bath condominiums. Parking is an additional $30,000 to $90,000 per space.
Floor area: 900 to 11,500 square feet
Annual assessment: $4 per square foot
Web site: www.lincolnpark2520.com
AMENITIES
* 9 1/2- to 10 1/2-foot ceilings.
*Wide-plank hardwood floors in main living areas.
*Poggenpohl kitchen cabinets, Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf range and oven, Miele dishwasher, granite kitchen countertops.
*Natural stone floor and wall tile in baths.
*Community: 306 condominiums with private one-acre park.
GETTING THERE
Address: 2520 N. Lakeview Ave.
Phone: 866-910-2520
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