Thomas Weeks, executive general manager, Lendlease, with rendering of The Cooper at Southbank, Chicago, IL

CHICAGO, IL—Sydney, Australia-based Lendlease, an international property and infrastructure group, is trying to incorporate best practices into its redevelopment activities through an approach it calls “urban regeneration,” according to Tom Weeks, executive general manager of development.

“What we call urban regeneration is, simply put, taking complex urban—perhaps underutilized—sites    that require as much of our expertise and our capital and other resources to create that best place, whatever that means in a particular context,” Weeks tells GlobeSt.com in an exclusive podcast interview. “In Chicago, we have three such projects, and those include Southbank, which is along the south branch of the Chicago River in the South Loop. We have a project that we are getting underway shortly in the Lakeshore East neighborhood, at the juncture of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, and a project in the West Loop at 845 West Madison.”

Listen to our exclusive conversation with Tom Weeks of Lendlease in the player below. If you don't see a player, click here to listen to the podcast.

In the fall, Lendlease opened The Cooper at Southbank, a 29-story, 452-unit luxury high-rise located at 720 S. Wells St. in Chicago's South Loop. The community, which welcomed first move-ins in September, was Lendlease's first Chicago project that the firm both built and developed. It's planning five residential towers in its seven-acre Southbank master plan.

“Southbank creates the opportunity of redeveloping it to match what the city has done in terms of the improvements of the river,” Weeks says, acknowledging the construction challenges that come from a river location. “It's something more than just building a building, but bringing amenities that allow a sense of community, and allow people to be able to live outside of their apartment, and interact with their with their neighbors and with community members. In the Southbank example, it's a kayak launch where they can go out and explore the river, or a water taxi stop where they can commute to work via the river.”