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River North office building will be 20 feet wide
By Steven Dahlman
20-Apr-16 – Blink and you could walk right past 710 North Dearborn Street. A medical office building is being constructed in River North that will be five stories tall but only 20 feet wide.
Lenox Hill Construction of New Lenox, Illinois, southwest of the Loop, announced on Tuesday it has broken ground on the building.
Illinois Orthopedic Network and Wiesman Cosmetic Surgery & Wellness Institute are at 712 North Dearborn Street. They are building in the empty lot next door to them and will expand their offices to the slender aluminum-and-glass building when it is completed six months from now.
(Left) Rendering by Ron Kwaske.
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On the other side, at 708 North Dearborn Street, is a four-story 124-year-old building with a hair/nail salon on the first floor and condominium units on upper floors. It sits on a 2,030 square foot lot.
(Above) Google Street View of 708, 710, and 712 North Dearborn Street. (Click on image to view larger version.)
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Architect Ron Kwaske calls the project “extremely challenging.”
“We had to get elevators, offices, and treatment rooms to fit while still giving the building a feeling of space,” says Kwaske (right). “We work with inches, not feet.”
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Kwaske originally designed a seven-story building but says “zoning issues” changed it to five floors and a rooftop deck.
“We wanted to do something not just run of the mill, commercial block and brick,” says Dr. Marc Strongin, a partner in Illinois Orthopedic Network. “We are an orthopedic practice but we consider ourselves boutique. We really treat our patients like family and we want them to feel as comfortable as possible when they visit us.”
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(Left) Workers for Lenox Hill Construction pour concrete into the 20-foot-wide lot between two buildings on North Dearborn Street. (Image obtained from Lenox Hill Construction.) |
