The Convoluted, Start-Stop Process That Birthed 1000M, Chicago's Glitziest Apartment Tower

Early in the development process for 1000M Apartments, Time Equities CEO Francis Greenburger went with his daughter and her friends on a vacation that changed the design of the 73-story building completely.

Greenburger proudly displayed to his daughter’s teenage friend the initial design, which was roughly rectangular but stepped in vertically as it got higher. She took one look and told Greenburger it looked like the building was going to fall over.

“I thought about it and I said, ‘She's right,’” Greenburger said at Bisnow’s Multifamily Annual Conference Midwest on Tuesday. “Who's going to buy an apartment in a building that looks like it's going to fall over?”

Greenburger called up the late Helmut Jahn, the famous architect whose last residential tower was 1000M, on New Year’s Day and told him he needed a new design. The new look was radically different, with soft curves juxtaposed on a rectangular base. 

“When it was all done, even Helmut, I think, was convinced that it was a great design,” Greenburger said. 

The 738-unit tower on Michigan Avenue opened to renters last spring following a series of developmental challenges, including a pandemic-induced work stoppage, Jahn's death during construction and a project pivot from condos to apartments. Time Equities and JK Equities developed the massive tower with backing from investor Oak Capitals.  McHugh Construction served as general contractor.

The most affordable apartment on the building’s website starts at about $2,400 per month for a 480 SF studio, and the most expensive option listed is just over $14K per month for a 3K SF, four-bedroom apartment.

Greenburger said the apartments are fully occupied.

Greenburger picked the site because it had a lot of air rights, or rights to the unused vertical airspace above a property, and because of its proximity to the Art Institute of Chicago and the “legendary” Michigan Avenue. The city also adjusted the historic district the site of 1000M was previously a part of to accommodate the building and approved its height, which was greater than the zoning would have normally permitted, he said.

Development work started on the project, initially slated as condos, in December 2019 with foundation work. But by the time the developers had to commit to putting up the crane and going vertical, the pandemic’s effects were widespread.

“The financial institutions were not in a good mood,” Greenburger said. 

Goldman Sachs initially committed to finance the entire $300M loan in a rare single-source structure for a condo tower, but it cut back to $200M after the onset of the pandemic.

As financial backers grew uneasy, new safety regulations threatened to slow construction to a crawl, and buyers weren’t biting on the tower’s most expensive condos. Time Equities “went into hibernation” at that point, pausing construction while rethinking the project’s direction.

“We took $6M in plans and we put them in the garbage,” Greenburger said. 

The firm had conversations with people in the Chicago market and found the demand was very strong for luxury apartments, and Time projected it could easily achieve high rent levels. Layouts for the building were redrawn to accommodate apartments. 

Then, Jahn died in 2021 after being struck by two vehicles as he was riding his bicycle. 

Greenburger said the moment was incredibly shocking, though the Jahn architecture team was so efficient and well attuned that there was no visible interruption to the project, as the firm's namesake had completed much of the planning prior to his death. 

Meanwhile, Time Equities brought in Deutsche Bank to fill the hole left by Goldman. And to fill the equity gap, Greenburger said it created an unusual structure that tied certain tax benefits to senior equity, which convinced tax-oriented investors to take a lower return than groups like hedge funds typically demand. 

Throughout the back-and-forth development process, Greenburger said one of his biggest takeaways was how many collaborators he needed to make the development happen.

“These buildings, even though people's minds just sort of pop up out of nowhere, there are hundreds, maybe pushing 1,000 people, professions of all kinds ... a huge village that comes together to make one of these things happen,” Greenburger said.