The Year's Highest Sales

In metropolitan Chicago this past year, 2,146 homes sold for $1 million or more. And the priciest place, at $13.25 million, was—a onetime coach house?

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The Condo Around the Corner
Neighborhood's empty nesters can downsize and stay close to home

Axis Properties and Northern Realty Group are providing new housing options for empty nesters loath to leave the Southwest Side neighborhood of Beverly. This fall, the two developers expect to start construction on Beverly Place, a collection of ten condos and 28 townhouses on 103rd Street immediately east of the Metra tracks. According to Kathleen Ryan, the sales director for New West Realty (which is handling sales and marketing for the project), Beverly Place will include some retail at street level and should be ready for occupancy beginning in the fall of 2006.

At press time, five two-bedroom condos were still available. They ranged in price from $341,600 for a 1,450-square-foot unit to $372,600 for a 1,578-square-foot unit, each with a balcony and indoor parking space. Townhouses run from $394,900 for an 1,868-square-foot, two-bedroom residence to $514,900 for a 2,900-square-foot, three-bedroom place. Each townhouse has a small private outdoor space; eight of the 28 townhouses have backyards.

A site on the Fox River that was once home to Joseph Spiess & Co., a prominent Elgin retailer, will become a key piece of that city's revitalization after it sprouts 196 new condos and 15 townhouses over the next year.

Spiess left downtown Elgin in 1984, and its former building was slated to be demolished in September. RSC & Associates, a Chicago

developer, plans to replace it with Fountain Square on the River, an eight-story condo structure and a string of townhouses. "Elgin has done a tremendous amount in expenditures for recreational and cultural facilities," says Rich Curto, the president of RSC & Associates. "Now residential is coming in because of it."

Fountain Square will have condos priced from $165,000-for an 800-square-foot unit with a balcony and heated underground parking space-to $480,000 for a two-story, 2,300-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse with two indoor parking spaces.

Early buyers at Avenue East-a 27-story condo tower planned for just east of North Michigan Avenue's InterContinental Chicago hotel-liked the décor of the models so much that developers have now made it possible to buy not just the layout but the look. Ann Danner, president of the Lake Forest–based Residential Homes of America, which is developing the property, explains that the majority of the buyers who have already taken 90 of the building's 133 units are people buying second homes. "They have decorated their main homes," Danner says. "They come to us and say, ‘Do you have a place where

I can walk in with my suitcase and move in?'"

In response, the company began marketing packages this past winter that let buyers pay an additional fee (of approximately $50 to $53 per square foot) to have the space completely furnished in one of four color palettes. At press time, Avenue East, which should be ready for occupancy in summer 2007, had units available starting at $339,900. That buys a 772-square-foot studio on the 21st floor. At the upper end, a 2,327-square-foot penthouse with three bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms is priced at $1,059,900.

This article appears in the October 2005 issue of Chicago Magazine.

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