Evanston is going to have a smaller skyline than OakPark in no time with this sort of shit

^ Hah, that was going to be my comment exactly.

Oak Park has been on fire lately. The area immediately around the Harlem Ave Green Line stop has seen significant improvement over the last few years. Very cool stuff. Now if only River Forest would do something about the southwest corner of Harlem/Lake. Forest Park should push some development on Circle/Lake as well. TOD, people!

Green line to Morgan - Evanston just can't offer that - plus we are way cooler than they are.

Sigh.... if only the L had better inter connectivity. In which case all areas would benefit.

I like how the L only benefits very specific areas at a time, makes profiting off of gentrification very easy...

Interconnectivity with what, exactly?

As a former near west suburbanite myself, I completely agree.

:cheers:

Within itself, outside of downtown

nuh-uh.

evanston is literally cooler (by the lake).

:D

^clearly need some spurs off the blue line at this point, to mention just one example, not to mention building an L line over Ashland for N-S

I'm totally okay with Oak Park having a larger skyline than Evanston. We need some height away from the lake.

I do wish Evanston's NIMBY council was a bit less NIMBY-ish though. Skokie has great bones and should aggressively court developers of denied proposals in Evanston. Maybe the Belmont Flyover will open up the possibility of routing the yellow line through the Loop during the rush. The Purple Line could be routed through the State St. subway since the trains have greater capacity and the red line is wall to wall during the rush.

There's quite a bit of NIMBY here in Oak Park too. Unfortunately for them, the village government is hellbent on densification.

^ Good thing for that too. Oak Park has excellent transit connections, with 2 CTA lines and a Metra line. Very lively downtown with lots of foot traffic, easily accessible retail/restaurant options for pedestrians. Really no need for a car if you live there and work in town or the city.

You clearly have spent too much time in Rogers Park if you are using sales pitches from Loyolas marketing campaign.

Only one has the Bahá'í House of Worship... (yeah, it's in Wilmette, whatever).

Evanston could and should be much more than it is today. It's Chicago's mini-me.

suck it, eTown

Maybe oak park will be chicago's Bronx in the next 20 years.

Yeah, I'm sure they'd love that

^ Not while the majority of Oak Park is leafy residential streets with mansions and tidy bungalows and foursquares. The Bronx is orders of magnitude denser than Oak Park will ever be.

The downtown development in Oak Park may boost transit ridership and support more local businesses because of concentration, but it's just a drop in the bucket for the overall density of Oak Park - whose village population has been creeping downward in virtually every census since 1940, despite numerous waves of big developments.

Decreasing family size/increasing average square footage of living space is a bitch. Evanston is also down from its 1960 peak, albeit by not as much as Oak Park. I wonder at the dynamics that have caused the difference in the drop off for both towns.

Lucien Lagrange in Oak Brook
 

27-story luxury condo development would be tallest building in Oak Brook


https://s14.postimg.org/bcorgdzbl/image.png

Interesting development. Seems like something you'd see in Houston or Atlanta, but not so much suburban Chicago. What are the chances of this being approved?

Those curved corners would look good along lincoln park.

Sounds like LaGrange is trying to do a One Bennett Park kinda thing out there. I like it. Oak Brook is about to experience a major ass-whipping soon, so this will be its consolation prize...

Might get approved, there is already a taller office building a few blocks away. Not sure i would want to spend what will probably be a lot of money to live in that corner of the mall though.

I like the idea. . . could set a new precedent for building tall residential buildings in Chicago 'burbs. . .

. . .

The article says the condos will be $1-Million to $3-Million. Seems very expensive to live in a mall parking lot. Nearby Western Springs has small Luxury Condo project under construction. Only 28 units, but seems to make more sense right next to a BNSF Metra Station.

https://www.foxfordstation.com/

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kh...A=w800-h600-no

It's not that unusual in other cities. Vancouver's been building luxury condos and apartments around virtually all of its suburban malls. LA has highrises around Westfield Century City. Toronto has countless suburban highrises including an entire skyline around Mississauga's Square One. In fact, North American suburbs pretty much never build suburban highrises UNLESS they are adjacent to a shopping mall. These places have wide roads with no worries about adding a few hundred extra cars, and no bitchy homeowners next door to complain about shadows.

As the article points out, this project is aiming at wealthy Oakbrook mansion owners/empty nesters who want to downsize. These people are not transit-oriented and will continue to lead an autocentric lifestyle, if they work downtown they will continue to drive to Metra. This project offers a way to downsize without losing prestige or leaving the community for the city. The North Shore has had these luxury multifamily developments for decades (usually lowrise condos or townhouses) but this is relatively new for the western suburbs.

From a political standpoint you probably couldn't get a highrise approved anywhere BUT a spot next to the mall. There's a reason the railroad downtowns are under-developed and even new infill is capped at 3-4 stories max, even if this is a huge waste of costly transit service... Plus, living next to the mall isn't so bad. Oakbrook Center has the western suburbs' best dining options and even a few shops that can loosely be considered "convenience retail", so I'm sure at least a few of these residents will end up walking much more than did in their mansions.

I agree that its location isn't the best (auto oriented mall parking lot), while also acknowledging that building near transit infrastructure (which is the right thing to do) can be difficult due to NIMBYism. That all said, its still adding to density out in the burbs as opposed to more tract housing that would eat up greenfield/farmland. We'll take what we can get. :)

Meaning what?

I work in Oak Brook, I'll take pictures if this gets built. It's about half a mile from Oakbrook Terrace tower (31 floors, 418 ft), so it won't look out of place. When I get a chance I'll take photo in that direction and see if I can mock up the massing.

27 floors of residential is what in height? 300-325ft?

McDonalds is leaving Oak Brook for the West Loop.

Right. But other companies have moved in, like mine.

That's nice.

That's good to hear. Unlike some people in this forum, I'm not aching to see the absolute implosion of the suburbs.

I actually would like to see more developments like this.

In addition, I absolutely love that luxury condos in the millions are selling adjacent to suburban Metra stations. This goes to show just how valuable access to downtown is. I view that as a good thing

Quick and dirty, just eyeballed. But the Oak Brook tower doesn't look out of place as far as height goes.
http://i65.tinypic.com/2chvs42.jpg

Some interesting and progressive things planned in Niles. We need more suburbs to have a pro-development, pro-transit bent:

https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/2/8/...district-plans

We're in Oakbrook Terrace Tower and I look forward to seeing the construction site from our 20th floor offices. . .

. . .

Yeah, I am in agreement that the suburbs won't be imploding anytime soon (nor should they). While cities continue to attract skilled Millennial workers, the suburbs remain alluring to a big chunk of the population and will continue to do so. What will end up occurring is that HQ's and offices that require young, tech savvy workers will continue migrating to the city, while suburban office space will transition to more back office/clerical uses that would most benefit from lower rents relative to the city center.

https://s14.postimg.org/8qt04361d/OA...R_1-_SMALL.jpg
https://s14.postimg.org/luykgs5sx/OA...R_2-_SMALL.jpg

That style looks really out of place there. Would look better in Arlington Heights, or other older areas. Around the mall, it sticks out poorly.

Looks like a Pokemon style pre-evolution of Park Tower.

Oak Park
 

South and Harlem

Feb 7



Feb 5



Feb 2



Jan 26

The best part of this is that it ties up Lagrange’s office, at least enough that it’s one less project he can take on in Chicago proper.

ahhhhhhhhh........... the lagrangian cancer is now spreading to the burbs!

make it stop.

MAKE IT STOP!

No, it’s a good thing. Trap him in the burbs designing this crap for people out here, while better designers can focus on the city

Honestly, I wish this design could swap places with the one just proposed for Dearborn and Oak. At least it doesn't have the HORRENDOUS mansard roof with the unexplainable four toothpicks sticking up from it, and it feels slightly more "cohesive" (if you can ever call a Lagrange design cohesive) than the Dearborn/Oak design.

That being said, they're both still atrocious.

If anyone is wondering what the top of the building looks like, here's a few images from Lagrange's website.

http://www.lucienlagrange.com/1900-s...7omw3lxk7vmh4j

^ This. All of this. :tup:

Demolition is currently underway for the new 10 story Will County Courthouse Joliet.
https://patch.com/illinois/joliet/fi...owntown-joliet

https://cdn20.patchcdn.com/users/229...51792-5289.jpg
Patch.com - https://cdn20.patchcdn.com/users/229...51792-5289.jpg
https://cdn20.patchcdn.com/users/229...51808-2294.jpg
Patch.com - https://cdn20.patchcdn.com/users/229...51808-2294.jpg