Trader-turned-developer has big idea for Streeterville site

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Artist Rendering of North Park Drive Development, a 50-story hotel and residential tower in Streeterville. Provided photo

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Updated: March 2, 2012 8:17AM

Chicago futures trader Donald Wilson Jr. has been using hard times and falling prices to bulk up on real estate holdings here. Now he’s stepping up to a riskier class, going from investor to developer, and he’s tipped off his plan of action.

Wilson is making the case to build a 50-story building along North Water Street immediately north of the Sheraton hotel. It would include apartments on the higher floors and a hotel on the lower levels. Sources said Wilson has an agreement with the Loews chain to operate the hotel.

Through a spokeswoman, Wilson declined to comment. But he’s been showing details to such groups as the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association and the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, whose support is crucial for a zoning deal.

The property was last in play for development in 2007, when Christopher Carley hatched a plan to give it a glittering 100-story Waldorf-Astoria hotel. It went the way of most grand notions once the market collapsed, and Wilson entered the picture in 2010 by acquiring the loans on the property for $16 million and inducing Carley to hand him the deed in lieu of foreclosure.

Wilson, founder of the trading firm DRW Holdings LLC, hasn’t built a high-rise, but he’s brought on an experienced team. Developer John Buck is advising on the deal, and Wilson’s architectural firm is the prolific Solomon Cordwell Buenz. Maybe it’s too prolific.

Gail Spreen, chairwoman of the Streeterville group’s real estate review committee, said members don’t have a problem with the intended use. But she said the glass-box proposal is too much like other buildings SCB has built in Streeterville and River North.

“We really need to have identifiable landmark buildings and not have everything just look the same,” she said.

Spreen and Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) applied similar pressure with an SCB-designed apartment tower going up at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive and won some changes.

As for Wilson’s proposal, the community hearings are expected in a few weeks.

REMAP ROULETTE: Real estate interests will need all the lobbying advice they can afford to deal with the new Chicago ward map, which introduces new politicians into the downtown development mix. It also suggests that some neighborhoods will be disenfranchised until the next election in 2015. Check the map below.

The 42nd Ward of Ald. Brendan Reilly remains the downtown stronghold, but it loses much of Streeterville north of Superior. That region and other parts of the Near North Side now are in the forlorn 2nd Ward, a laughable creation that travels a winding path through Old Town and ends near Ukrainian Village.

Grabbing the old 2nd Ward’s chunks of the Near South Side are the 3rd and 4th Wards. The 4th Ward of Ald. William Burns and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle gets Printers Row and blocks as far north as Jackson. The 3rd Ward of Ald. Pat Dowell gets much of Central Station and Dearborn Park. The old Post Office redevelopment site falls into the 25th Ward, and the 11th Ward grabs part of the UIC area.

There is no more eloquent argument for cutting the City Council in half, to 25 members, than this rat’s nest of a ward map.

UPTOWN CONSTRUCTION: Chicago Lakeshore Hospital, which serves the mentally ill, has started work on its new Children’s Pavilion at 4720 N. Clarendon, part of a five-year, $20 million improvement program. The 60-bed pavilion will be in a 41,000-square-foot building that’s being renovated. The opening is expected this fall.

The next phase of the hospital’s work will be the demolition and reconstruction of the outpatient building at 850 W. Lawrence. Completion there is expected in July 2013.

The hospital said it expects increased caseloads from federal mandates that health plans cover mental illness.

WRIGLEY TWINS: Judging from the posted agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, the Wrigley Building will get the fast-tracked version of landmark status. The commission’s recommendation is going straight to the City Council, without hearings, a signal that the building’s owners, including Groupon Inc. founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, agree. A sweetener for the owners is that the commission also is recommending the Wrigley for Class L property tax incentives.

Also Thursday comes a matter involving the other Wrigley, Wrigley Field. The commission’s permit review committee will review plans for an LED sign on part of the right-field bleachers.

OOPS! That new 50,000-square-foot incubator for tech companies is going into the Merchandise Mart, not where I erroneously mentioned.

DOING THE DEALS: McShane Construction finished a 52,000-square-foot Fitness Formula Club at 10 S. Clinton in Presidential Towers. . . . Apparel and shoe store Akira is coming to the old Borders space at 1539 E. 53rd St. this fall, said the landlord, the University of Chicago. … Structured Development said Petsmart and Best Buy Baby will take 45,000 square feet at its 1415 N. Kingsbury plaza, due to break ground soon. … Gurnee Mills is getting a 14,000-square-foot Shoe Dept. Encore this spring.

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