"Wacker Drive will be a very hot spot to be in the next two to three years," says Brad Nieman of the John Buck Co., which made one of three presentations to brokers at the Commercial Real Estate Organization Wednesday.

Along with Hyatt Center, one of the worst-kept secrets in the market's development world, renderings were offered of Hines Interests LP's 191 N. Wacker, a project under development. However, city officials probably had the best news, announcing Monday's reopening of the N. State Street bridge across the Chicago River while LaSalle Street closes, as well as the reopening of the N. Orleans St. bridge.

That will be cause for celebration – figuratively for the Downtown office building owners and their tenants who are navigating the traffic tie-ups and detours caused by the double-deck project and literally. The city will throw some special events now, but the big celebration will be at the end of 2002 when both upper and lower Wacker Drive reopen.

"It's a very challenging project, very complex technically. It's quite an amazing thing to watch," says S.I. Kaderbek, deputy commissioner and chief engineer for the city's department of transportation.

The work was necessary, commissioner Miguel d'Escoto says, considering a section of concrete had dipped a half-inch. "Thank God at that time we were out for bid and in the award process," d'Escoto says. "The upper deck is nothing more than a bridge. It's deteriorated. It's 75 years old."

Pritzker Group and Higgins Development Partners LLC are building a 1-million-sf, 45-story tower at Wacker and Monroe Street. The Pritzker's Hyatt Corp. has already committed to 300,000 sf of lower-level space, says Jack McKinney, whose J.F. McKinney & Associates is the leasing marketing agent for the building. Ground will be broken in January, McKinney says, and the building will be topped out in October 2003.

Meanwhile, Hines Interest's 37-story 191 N. Wacker Dr. is on time for an October 2002 completion and on budget, says Gregory Van Schaack.

"We'll have three world-class buildings being built," Neiman says. "That's a great sign for Wacker Drive, a great sign for Chicago."