The developer, Kinzie Development South, LLC, is seeking zoning changes that would let it build an office building 62% larger than currently allowed, while the proposed condominium and hotel portion of the project is 48% larger than allowed. However, Kinzie Development South is earning density bonuses for public parks, underground parking and upper-level setbacks. Existing zoning under a planned development approved in the 1980s allow a 300,000-sf office building, 340-room hotel with 100,000 sf of retail and office space. The project was endorsed by the plan commission.

The office building already is 68% leased, notes Richard Stein, part of the development team. His Mesirow Stein Real Estate Inc. and law firm Jenner & Block will co-anchor the building. Work on the office building is scheduled to begin in September, he adds, while Jones Lang LaSalle continues to raise the more than $300 million needed to construct the building. "We hope to be opening a sales office [for condominiums] in 90 to 120 days on the north lot," Stein says.

Albert Friedman says construction of the hotel, the only part of the project that drew any criticism during the plan commission meeting, will begin in April. The 2.9-acre site is north of a Westin Hotel, and northwest of the Marina City condominium towers, as well as the House of Blues hotel.

Unite HERE, which represents 15,000 hotel workers, notes the project will increase the Downtown hotel room supply by 2%. While admitting the union has been rebuffed in attempts to talk to the hotel developer, the group notes the increase in the room total was done in August by former Planning and Development chief Denise Casalino, without public hearing.

The Westin hotel, originally the Nikko, as well as an office building at 321 N. Clark St., is part of an original planned development approved in 1984, according to the Department of Planning and Development. Although the land north of those buildings to Hubbard Street were added in 1988, development has yet to occur.

"This is a very, very important project," says 42nd Ward Alderman Burton Natarus. "We're getting rid of a hole in the wall there north of the Quaker Oats building. It'll make the city look a lot better."

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Commission Endorses $600M Mixed-Use Plan for River North Block

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