We snapped Village Green SVP Kellie Sanders  showing us around the Fisher Building. The 114-year-old Burnham-designed former office still has the original doors with company names on them. The tiles and marble walls are also original. But old building doesn’t mean old technology. Partnering with VaultWare, Village Green has created an application that ties smartphone GPS to its apartments and returns price and floorplan. From there, the company signs leases for as short as one night and as long as two years.

The living room of a unit overlooking Harold Washington Library. Village Green is also in the process of renovating 188 W. Randolph, another former historic office building, into apartments. The company is in the exploratory stage, but hopes to keep historic elements as it did at Fisher, as well as at the Medical and Dental Arts  building, its other historic downtown high-rise. That building is decorated with a healthcare theme (who knew that would become all the rage?) Village Green also owns/manages new apartment complexes throughout the suburbs.