Friedman Properties plans a new 29-story office tower in River North on the site of an existing firehouse.
In exchange, the Chicago developer will build a new firehouse at the base of the new 600,000-square foot office tower, developers said at a public meeting Tuesday.
Plans for the project — dubbed 444 North Dearborn — call for a $20 million firehouse to be built just west of the existing 50-year-old station, according to developers. Once the new firehouse is complete, the old one will be torn down and the office building will take its place.
Friedman, which specializes in River North development, will pay the city $5 million for the firehouse property and an adjacent alley, according to the city. Developers also said they will pay $10 million to the city’s Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus system, which supports commercial development, landmark protection and infrastructure improvements in underserved neighborhoods.
The new officer tower would pay about $4.4 million in property taxes annually, according to the city.
The new three-story firehouse will be designed by DLR Group, which has done a number of firehouse projects in the city. Goettsch Partners will design the office tower, which will be about 455 feet tall.
Though the project will be built in two phases — new firehouse first, followed by the office tower — the buildings will essentially wrap into each other, said Scott Seyer, principal at Goettsch Partners.
“It’s intended to feel like one building,” he said.
As vacant land in city centers grows more scarce, officials have increasingly turned to similar public-private partnerships to build new amenities like fire stations and libraries. In Chicago, developers are working with library officials to include new branches in their developers, including Related Midwest.
The project has yet to receive approval from the city. Once that happens, construction should take almost 3½ years, said Jason Friedman, president of Friedman Properties.
The project will likely require pre-leasing of the office tower as a means of financing the building, he said.
While the tower wouldn’t come online for a few years, the current downtown office market continues to reflect healthy demand, even as several large projects are delivered.