University Center of Chicago

Project of the Year: Residential/Housing

The University Center of Chicago is an 18-story student residence in the city's South Loop and is reportedly the nation's largest multi-university dormitory.

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The facility offers an impressive range of options to complement practically any student lifestyle and support student education needs.

The 702,000-sq.-ft. residence hall houses 1,680 undergraduate, graduate and professional students from Columbia College, DePaul University and Roosevelt University and 43 resident staff members. The facility boasts a variety of student housing options and amenities and hosts a full-service, year-round conference center for educational and corporate clients, summer housing and 31,000-sq.-ft. of commercial space on the ground floor.

The three universities jointly developed the project and created the Educational Advancement Fund, a nonprofit corporation, to develop the project and maintain the building. EAF is run by a six-member board of directors with two executives from each of the three institutions.

DePaul and Roosevelt each have a 40 percent stake in the facility, with Columbia holding the rest.

Suites and Apartments

The student and staff residences are on floors three through 18 of the E-shaped building.

The north side of the building has suite-style units and the south side features apartments. Every residential floor has a lounge and study room, and there are student-specific housing sections for undergraduate students and graduate or professional students.

The north side houses 46 deluxe doubles suites and 234 quad semi-suites.

The south side offers 143 quad four-bedroom apartments, 14 quad two-bedroom apartments and 24 studio apartments.

All units are furnished and feature central air conditioning, utilities and a technology package that includes local telephone service, satellite TV reception and high-speed Internet for each resident. Furnishings include beds, desks, closets with organizers, shelving units, carpeting, blinds and smoke detectors.

An enclosed communal great room on the third floor features a large gas fireplace with stone mantel. Doors on either side of the fireplace open to a 20,000-sq.-ft. garden terrace with trees, shrubs and flowers.

Two Section Erection

Completing the building in two years was a primary goal, and the building was erected in two different sections that saved about three months.

The larger south tower was constructed first, the north tower came next and a 16-ft.-long pour strip, or gap, was temporarily left to separate the two.

Turner Construction Co., the general contractor, chose to use two tower cranes and expedited the south tower, which included the elevator cores, the mechanical, electrical and plumbing-intensive apartments, cafeteria and penthouse mechanical room.

The concentration on the south tower allowed early execution of the exterior precast concrete panels and building enclosure for interior apartment build-out.

An Urban Site

About 71,000 cars daily pass the site on the corner of the one of the busiest intersections in Chicago, State Street and Congress Parkway, and there was coordination with the Chicago Department of Transportation to ensure minimal traffic impact.

The site had previously housed a manufacturing plant, a service station, a multi-level parking facility and a surface parking lot.

Many existing foundations were uncovered, and the project called for 126 new caissons to be sunk.

The existing obstructions were removed, with the drilled piles being the trickiest. These were extracted and included running a line run between a caisson rig and the pile and pulling.

Given such a large student population, it was important to create a building that had a sense of community and home.

The design team that included Antunovich Associates and VOA Associates, each of Chicago, integrated small, intimate and informal places in the building and by creating the outdoor "escape" from the urban environment.

Lounges on each floor and the Great Room provide warm spaces with a home-like feel. And, the amenity spaces on the second floor are intended to be gathering spaces.

The jury said, "It's really a fantastic project. Student housing is going to this apartment-style housing and is in high demand. The logistics were tight. The elevated train is right there."