Ivanhoé Cambridge, Hines to develop Chicago tower

Ivanhoé Cambridge and Hines are teaming up to develop a Chicago office tower, making it the largest real estate project to be launched in the city in five years.  

According to a statement released by Ivanhoé Cambridge, the Montreal-based real estate subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec plans to invest $300 million to build the 45-story office tower in Chicago’s West Loop submarket. The tower, to be called River Point, is being developed by co-investor and Houston-based real estate firm Hines. A spokeswoman for Hines told PERE that the total cost of the project is estimated to be $400 million, with Hines kicking in the remaining $100 million.

River Point, which is pre-certified LEED Gold, will be built at 444 West Lake Street on the western bank of the Chicago River and contain approximately 900,000 square feet of leasable space. The project also calls for construction of a 1.5-acre public park atop the existing rail infrastructure that will connect the tower and its walkway to the Chicago Riverwalk. 

“Chicago is an important city in the US. The economy is moving in the right direction, and the city itself has been changing over the past few years, becoming more of a 24-hour city,” Pierre-François Chapleau, Ivanhoé Cambridge’s vice president of office development for North America, told PERE. “So the timing was right for us to make a major investment in the city.”

The investment is expected to close by the end of this month, with construction to commence before year-end. Tenant occupancy is scheduled to begin in early 2016.

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said River Point will be the largest real estate project to be launched in the past five years in the city, where no other such construction projects currently are underway. “River Point is welcome news for the local economy and a signal that Chicago is leading the nation in job creation and economic development,” he added.

Bill Tresham, president of global investments at Ivanhoé Cambridge, called the River Point project “exceptional,” both for its “prime location” and because it’s being developed at a time when “all signs point to a substantial increase in demand for new office properties in downtown Chicago in the years to come.”

This marks the third project that Hines and Ivanhoé Cambridge have partnered on in recent years. The other two projects include Eighth Avenue Place in Calgary and the T1 tower in the La Défense business district of Paris. In addition, Ivanhoé Cambridge, with Hines as its development partner, recently won a competition among architects, developers and investors for construction of a twin-tower complex, called ‘Duo’, in Paris’ 13th arrondissement.