International Property Developers (IPD) has renewed plans for massive developments around Chicago’s Old Main Post Office. IPD bought the structure in 2009 for $40 million and has been working with Chicago-based architects Antunovich Associates on a plan to surround the massive building, which has almost as much interior space as Willis Tower, with three new towers.
The first phase, expected to take 5-7 years, would be a 100-story tower with 800,000 square feet of retail, 2,900 residential units, and 525,000 square feet of office space. Following that, a second 2,000-foot-tall tower would go up, adding 3,500 residential units, 1.5 million square feet of office space, and 920 hotel rooms. The project’s 5,700-space parking garage, rising six stories, would be built during the first phase, project representatives said at a public meeting Tuesday.
Those numbers are daunting, but so is the original acquisition, after all. They would need a sizable anchor tenant to lend the proposal some economic legitimacy. A casino, perhaps? Aldermanic support for the $3.5 billion development has apparently not waned, nor has scrutiny of its decidedly suburban sensibility and so-far uninspiring design.