A look at North Campus:
http://chicagomaroon.com/2016/04/03/...student-tours/

The interiors look pretty cheap. I know it's a college dorm and all but still... I'm sure they'll be charging ridiculous amounts for people to live there.

^Looks pretty much on par with the high end of on campus student housing to me. Part of it is because the interior are all so neutral, all white laminates versus faux granite and wood laminates. But no one dare put in anything nicer than that. The students will just destroy it eventually.

And it doesn't look cheap at all compared with the concrete block rooms with VCT floors that might be available elsewhere on campus.

Looks REALLY cheap.

Those cabinets will be shitty in like 6 months.

http://chicagomaroon.com/wp-content/...3-1024x768.jpg

This is a college dorm we're talking about. It's considered a blessing for some to even have a kitchen.

Seriously. Come back to reality folks.

that kitchen is nicer than one in my rental (seriously, its about double my counter space).

It's not great but it's also a college dorm. Not the best I've seen, definitely not the worst.

On the plus side, I didn't realize that there's retail on the ground floor
http://s29.postimg.org/icsocj147/Scr...1_23_01_AM.jpg

Eh, it's kind of my reality. I'd easily trade my housing dorm for the new one with the "shitty cabinets". I'll leave it at that.

I'm liking how universities located in cities are starting to have retail for their new dorms. Have seen this a lot in both MIT and UPenn. Definitely helps connect the dorm to the surrounding neighborhood and also offers a great places to study during the middle of the night :tup:

One of those spots already has a tenant lined up, it will be a Dollop coffee shop.

55th street is kind of a dead zone along there. With the garage and dorm both offering retail space, maybe it could turn into a livelier environment. I wonder if they might eventually upgrade that Jimmy's building into some kind of mixed use retail...

Dude, the new Penn dorm going up doesn't have ground floor retail. Which is a huge contrast to the Drexel dorm across the street that does. Soooo... :shrug::shrug:

Hub 3939 isn't a UPenn dorm? I know the university leases the retail front. That being said, you are right that Drexel has done a lot with adding vitality to the streets of University City. The neighborhood has become an extension of Philadelphia's CBD with all the built and proposed offices and high rises. I should have given Drexel a lot more credit in my post.

Wow this is really fantastic

Ahh you're right. Penn has done a lot on 40th and Walnut. I was thinking of the one they're putting up right now. Interestingly enough, the guy who now runs Drexel ran Penn back in the '90s, when they put up most of their most urban stuff.

But this is a Chicago thread. ;)

City Hyde Park
http://chicago.curbed.com/2016/4/6/1...ark-apartments

I like the fact the fact that:
1) UChicago has been expanding the quads by closing streets
2) The University often doesn't hesitate to knock obsolete buildings down any more. Instead of building around them or trying to renovate them...

Agreed. That's a great finished product. Also its varied facade fits in nicely with U of C's diverse architecture. I love it.

Huh?

As someone noted above, the University is closing part of Greenwood to expand or make a quad by North Campus. previously, the University closed part of 58th street east and west of the Main Quads to, in effect, expand the main quad:

http://facilities.uchicago.edu/const..._enhancements/

In addition, instead of just building around existing buildings, such as the University did a while ago when they built Crerar and the Biological Sciences Learning Center, they are now routinely demolishing buildings to open up space--knocking down a million apartments in west campus by the Medical Center, knocking down Woodward Court, Pierce, Phemister Hall, the Post Office, the Research Institutes, etc., etc.