In the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, the residents are excited about the planned redevelopment of the 53rd Street corridor. Bloggers, citizens groups and business owners are following the action closely. A recent spate of activity that includes the renovation of Harper Theater, the opening of a large mixed-use project called Harper Court and the renovation of a little gem of a building called The Promontory have the neighborhood buzzing with excitement.
The Promontory’s previous life was as a Borders bookshop and the building was a nondescript brick and limestone, two-story edifice that sat hard by the light-rail station. In a way, the building was part of the gateway to the 53rd Street corridor, framing the entrance.
Match and Contrast
Antunovich Associates, a Chicago-based architecture firm, landed the job of converting the building into an appropriate and interesting home for four tenants while also refurbishing the exterior to reflect the excitement about this new phase of the neighborhood. George Sorich, AIA, LEED AP, is a principal at Antunovich and the project architect. “Everybody wanted something that was uniquely different,” he says. “We had to respect the historical environment, but on the other hand this is new architecture, breathing new life into 53rd Street.”
Unlike many urban buildings, The Promontory is surrounded on three sides by roads and sidewalks, with the fourth side serving as a parking lot. Consequently, the four elevations are all clearly visible and the cladding material becomes an even more important statement.
Understandably, there was considerable discussion of what to do with the exterior of the building as part of the master plan in the redevelopment. “When we came upon the zinc paneling,” says Sorich, “we loved it for its scale and texture … We expect some patina to occur with the zinc over time.” The smaller, repetitious panels and graduated The renovation of the Promontory both fits and contrasts with the redevelopment in Hyde Park color palette work with the historical aspects of the neighborhood but clearly define a new direction. The paneling totals 14,600 square feet of Anthra Zinc and Pigmento Blue Zinc Flat Lock Panel from Raleigh, N.C.-based Umicore Building Products USA Inc.
Four Tenants
The colors and paneling also help define the spaces occupied by the four tenants. The front, first floor of the building houses a Chicago clothing store called Akira, and above that is a CorePower Yoga studio. The back of the building, with the patio and balcony, accommodates one tenant with two purposes: The Promontory is a first-floor restaurant with a separate second-floor entertainment venue.
Each of the tenants required a separate public access, but Sorich made the entrances work without having to significantly alter the structure of the building. Akira needed a strong sidewalk presence with large windows. CorePower Yoga, as a destination tenant, could use a more private entrance on the side of the building, while the Promontory required a public entrance, which is defined by the banding around larger fenestration.
Two particular challenges arose, though. “At the time we started designing,” Sorich says, “we didn’t know who all the tenants were so we weren’t sure how to fit them in.” The only confirmed tenant was Akira.
The second challenge was the variety of gathering places each tenant represented and the requirements for them. “For us, from an architectural standpoint, we took a retail building, mercantile use, and had to split it up into mercantile for the Akira space, but then the other tenants are all considered assembly. So for us there was some special constraints, especially with the large assembly in the music venue, which holds 700 people.”
The selection of the zinc panels not only has defined this building but, according to Sorich, influenced the cladding selection for the new, nearby Hyatt Place Hotel, which will also use zinc panels.
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The Promontory, Chicago
Owner: Lake Park Associates, a non-profit real estate arm of the University of Chicago
Architect: Antunovich Associates, Chicago
General contractor: Riis Borg, Chicago
Metal wall panel fabricator/installer: Tuschall Engineering Co., Burr Ridge, Ill.
Metal wall panels: Umicore Building Products USA Inc., Raleigh, N.C., www.vmzinc-us.com