More Top Picks Best Continuous Glucose Monitors
player ready...Chicago real estate developer Richard A. Stein constructed high-profile local projects like the Loop’s Franklin Center building, the Metcalfe federal office building, the University of Illinois Chicago’s campus expansion and the decommissioned Glenview Naval Air Station and Fort Sheridan military bases’ redevelopments.
Widely known as Richie, Stein built one of Chicago’s largest development companies and supported aggressive minority hiring for private-sector construction projects, with a commitment to diversity rarely seen by developers.
“He felt that every project was an expression of who he was, for all to see and judge,” said Julia Stasch, a former Stein & Co. president and chief operating officer. “So, he paid attention to every detail, making sure it was just right.”
Stein, 87, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on June 6 at his River North home, said his daughter Katie Balson. He previously had lived in Lincoln Park, Highwood and Glencoe.
Born in Chicago in 1939, Stein grew up in Highland Park and graduated from Highland Park High School. After earning a degree in hotel management from Cornell University in 1961, Stein briefly attended the University of Chicago Law School.
“I had always been interested in business, and at the time, it seemed to me that all corporate directors were lawyers,” Stein told the Tribune in 1985. “Two weeks into the semester, I asked a third-year law student if it ever got any easier. He said no … so I left law school and have never regretted it.”
Stein initially sold coal and heating oil to apartment building owners. The work “tided me over until I found something else to do,” he told the Tribune.
In 1963, Stein and a partner, Ray Klein, co-founded Littlestone Co., renovating small apartment buildings. The duo rehabbed apartment flats on the Near West Side and later in Old Town. The pair also constructed suburban apartment buildings, particularly federally subsidized projects for moderate-income and elderly individuals.
After selling Littlestone in 1971, Stein launched his namesake firm and led condominium conversion projects, including the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed Gold Coast buildings at 900 and 910 N. Lake Shore Drive, the Lakeview building at 3900 N. Lake Shore, and conversions in Highland Park, Lombard and Willowbrook. With the condo craze cooling in the late 1970s, Stein constructed suburban office complexes, including the Lake Cook Office Centre and ArborLake complexes in Deerfield, and the Combined Centre complex in Northbrook.
Eyeing the Loop, Stein pursued larger commercial developments. He constructed the 27-story office building at 203 N. LaSalle St. on a long-stalled Loop property, along with an apartment tower and parking decks.
Mayor Harold Washington required Stein’s north Loop projects to steer 30% of all work to minority- or women-owned firms. Stein and Stasch supported the measure.
“Harold Washington’s greatest strength was his commitment to affirmative action,” Stein told the Tribune shortly after Washington’s death in 1987. “I tried to get across to him that a strong downtown provides jobs for the neighborhoods. He understood that.”
Stein built the 60-story AT&T Corporate Center — now known as Franklin Center — in the Loop, which was completed in 1989, and the adjoining 35-story USG building that finished in 1992. Stein also built the 27-story Metcalfe Federal Building, which opened in 1991, and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business’ Gleacher Center and Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus building, which both opened in 1994.
Former Stein & Co. President Richard Hanson, hired in 1984 to help pursue commercial development, said Stein did “seemingly insane things that usually turned out great.”
“Richie led with action, not words,” Hanson said. “He expected you to do your best, as demonstrated by his own efforts, and instilled in you the desire to achieve the seemingly impossible. Richie’s spirit was contagious and everyone around him wanted to embrace it and be swept up in his enthusiasm.”
During the early-1990s economic slowdown, Stein adapted to greater public-sector and nonprofit construction. His firm was the developer arm for McCormick Place’s expansion and the owners’ representative for the United Center’s construction.
“It was clear that you couldn’t keep the pace of the ‘80s going forever,” he told the Tribune in 1992. “So about four or five years ago, we started a conscious effort to build up and do the things that (aligned) with our strengths.”
Stein also led renovations at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Civic Opera House.
In 1995, Glenview officials tapped Stein to oversee the mixed-use redevelopment of the massive former Glenview Naval Air Station, including 1,500 new residences. Stein’s firm advised Glenview and supplied a project manager.
Stein was also chosen to redevelop 110 acres of the shuttered lakefront Fort Sheridan military base in Highland Park and Highwood. The project was deeply personal for the Highland Park native, whose pitches to local officials invoked his lifelong connection to the area.
“I’m ecstatic, pleased, gratified and grateful,” he told the Tribune in 1996. “It’s very satisfying to be able to do something significant where your roots are. … It’s kind of humbling.”
Stein acknowledged that repurposing base buildings wasn’t easy.
“Mixing new and old residences and turning old military buildings into something that will sell in 1998 is a real challenge,” Stein told the Tribune in 1998.
In 1997, Stein’s firm was selected to redevelop UIC’s 45-acre South Campus, including the old Maxwell Street Market’s site, which was bulldozed in 1994.
More Top Picks How To Help A Child With Adhd Finish Reading Assignments
“South Campus is as significant as anything we’ve ever tackled,” Stein told the Tribune in 2000. “The South Campus developments will unlock the value of the land and help UIC fulfill its mission.”
Along with the loss of Maxwell Street, opponents of the project have objected to how it displaced Near West Side communities, criticisms that extend back to the creation of the original campus in the 1960s.
In 1997, Mesirow Financial acquired Stein’s firm, forming Mesirow Stein Real Estate. Stein stepped back from daily operations while continuing to build relationships.
In 2014, Stein left Mesirow Stein to form RAS Development, a firm developing a 2.3 million-square-foot mixed-use project just north of Boston. He spent a decade-plus on that project.
“He was unique, he was creative (and) he was passionate about what he did,” said retired attorney Ted Novak, 85, who represented Stein for decades. “Richie was absolutely unique in terms of his passion, his character, his philanthropy and his care for people.”
Stein never retired.
In 1997, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois — now Landmarks Illinois — named Stein its “man of the year” for rehabbing Fort Sheridan’s century-old buildings.
Stein said personal initiative was what he liked most about real estate.
“If I don’t get out and hustle and call, and move, nothing happens,” he told the Tribune in 1980. “As you get older and bigger, more stuff comes your way but, still, the things I do I have to create myself.”
Outside of work, Stein enjoyed fly fishing. He traveled to Alaska to fly-fish for 30 years straight.
“He loved everything about fly-fishing — the beauty of the river and nature, the mental focus, the camaraderie of a group of people he loved participating in the sport he loved,” Hanson said. “Although we were business partners for almost 20 years, our most memorable times together were spent on a river. As time passed, he told me that other than family and friends, the thing he missed most was fishing.”
Stein was also involved with the Jewish United Fund, the Lambs Inc., the Anti-Defamation League and Ravinia Festival.
Two previous marriages ended in divorce. Stein is also survived by his wife of 24 years, Suzanne Lovell; another daughter, Barbara Stein; a stepdaughter, Alice Lewis; a stepson, William Rossiter; 11 grandchildren; and a sister, Joy Lodge.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.