Twelve55 South Michigan
South Loop Project Includes Tower, Senior Building

by Jeffrey Steele

The $85 million Twelve55 South Michigan building, an ambitious mixed-use apartment development in Chicago's South Loop, will feature two apartment towers, retail space and a parking garage.

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The construction, which began in June 2004, has gone smoothly except for the installation of mechanical, electrical and plumbing lines, said Dave Becraft, MEP coordinator with Chicago-based James McHugh Construction Co., the general contractor.

"All the MEP, piping and ductwork, as well as the fire-protection lines, needed close supervision to make them fit within the spaces allotted," Becraft said.

"That took extra time in the coordination effort, which resulted in tighter systems being installed within the spaces. The coordination necessary between trades was definitely above and beyond what would typically be expected for this type of building."

He said part of that coordination process required on-the-spot decisions for additional ceilings and soffits, as well as some wall extensions needed to enclose all the mechanicals.

"The trades have shown a willingness to accommodate one another to make it all fit," he added.

Two Residential Buildings

Twelve55 South Michigan at 13th and Michigan streets will offer a 411-unit apartment tower 40 stories high and an adjacent 91-unit, 10-story building designed to provide rental apartments for senior citizens, said Mike Fitzpatrick, senior project manager with McHugh.

Each building will include retail space at ground level, and a 391-space parking garage will serve both buildings. Work on the 580,000-sq.-ft. development will finish in March.

To make Twelve55 South Michigan a reality, owner Forest City Enterprises Inc. of Cleveland met Chicago's requirement that 35 percent of the apartments be affordable units, said Jon Wallenmeyer, the company's Washington, D.C.-based vice president.

Forest City Enterprises responded by designating the entire senior building and 20 percent of the apartment tower as affordable units, Wallenmeyer said.

A variety of amenities will be included in the complex.

For instance, the seven-story parking garage, which is screened from Michigan Avenue by the apartment tower and the senior building, features a green roof that serves as a landscaped "amenity level." It features walking paths, swimming pool, hot tub, conference room, workout room and grilling areas accessible to both buildings' occupants.

Within this amenity level is a private terrace area more readily accessible from the senior building, allowing older adults a comfortable, quiet respite from the rest of the amenity level.

Al Schvetz, site superintendent for McHugh, said this seventh-floor park will feature retaining walls with built-in benches and planting beds, as well as red maple and other shade trees planted on the perimeter of the park.

The roof of the parking garage isn't the project's only green roof. There's one atop the senior building.

"It's going to be 100 percent perennials, planted in masses of colors," Schvetz said. "There will also be gravel paths, a visual breakup of the planting plan."

The inclusion of the green roofs came at the insistence of Forest City Enterprises, which makes sustainability a priority.

"The less paved area the better," Wallenmeyer said. "The result is more oxygen production and lower energy costs."

Two Residential Identities

Each of the two residential buildings has its own individual identity, said Mark Frisch, principal with Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates, the Chicago-based architect of record.

That was important because they will serve different purposes, housing different types of residents at different rental rates.

Each building will have a separate entry, though movement from one to the other will be possible within the buildings.

Frisch said the 40-story tower is a streamlined, forward-thinking structure combining concrete and curtain wall and a stone base. By contrast, the senior building features a masonry cladding, which imbues it with a warmer feel than the tower.

"They are connected, but they have a distinct separation, so the two facades don't touch," Frisch added. "The connector is a multistory glass structure connected at the base."

Because the buildings occupy a prominent site near the south end of Grant Park, Twelve55 South Michigan was envisioned as a landmark, Frisch said.

"With respect to that, we as the architects left the facades adjacent to the streets rectilinear, and then made the facade facing the park curvilinear to maximize views from the units and increase its prominence," he added. "On the rectilinear street facade on 13th Street, there were changes in plane that broke down the mass of the tower. They were developed to increase views not only south, but east and west."

At ground level, the retail spaces have facades slightly different from that found at higher levels.

For instance, glazing is more generous, and more transparent, than in higher floors to allow pedestrians to easily look at merchandise.

In designing Twelve55 South Michigan, the architects were also mindful of the city's wishes. One was that the structures respect the "street wall" - the distance from curb to building facade - of Michigan Avenue buildings farther north. North Michigan Avenue has a formal street wall, and the city wished that to be carried south.

The other was that the city wanted any parking garage screened from view.

"The parking is actually underneath half the senior building, or conversely the senior building drops down to the street and screens the parking building from view," Frisch said. "As a result, the street is activated by the apartments, rather than by views of the parking garage."

Standard Construction Issues

The Twelve55 South Michigan parcel, part of the 25-acre Central Station property in Chicago's South Loop, was vacant and required scant sitework,

Wallenmeyer said. All that had to be addressed, he said, were "the basic site issues you'd have that close to the water's edge, such as the need for soil sampling and removing obstructions from previous buildings."

Many deliveries of materials and equipment were made on a just-in-time schedule, said McHugh Construction's Fitzpatrick.

When materials did need to be stored offsite, a couple of vacant Central Station parcels owned by Forest City Enterprises were used for the staging, Wallenmeyer added.

Frisch said this project is unique. "We do a lot of multifamily residential, the majority of which is condo, so the fact that it was an apartment building made it fun," he added. "The fun part was knitting together all the various parts."