Classing Up the Community

Hubbard Place, the Habitat Company’s latest addition to Chicago’s vibrant River North neighborhood, brings luxury to both its residents and the district

By Joann Plockova

The building’s dramatic streetscape features two fountains separated by a walkway and measuring 80 feet in length. The space also includes a garden where both residents and members of the community can sit and take in the scenery.

It was in the 1970s that Dan Levin, founder and chairman of residential development and management firm the Habitat Company LLC, first had a vision for Chicago’s River North neighborhood. At the time, the area was just a “rail yard and rail houses,” according to Mark Segal, the Habitat Company’s current president and CEO, but Levin saw an opportunity to turn it into a real community.

Levin began making an impact on the area with the development of the now-iconic East Bank Club, one of the nation’s most elaborate urban sports, dining, and health facilities, and he continued with the acquisition of several more sites—one of which, in 2007, became home to Kingsbury Plaza, a 420-unit residence. Today, thanks in part to his work, River North is one of Chicago’s most vibrant and thriving areas.

The 29,000-square-foot indoor lounge, covering the whole ninth floor, has a see-through fireplace, a cinema room, a game room, the Hub Club lounge, and a gym/spa.

In October 2013, the Habitat Company opened its most recent building in the district: Hubbard Place. The stunning 43-story, 450-unit residence is a prime example of the firm’s focus on the finer things, but it’s also meant to fit in with its surroundings unobtrusively. “We wanted to make sure that what we did was good for the residents at Hubbard Place as well as the people in the surrounding community,” Segal says.

Located across from the East Bank Club, Hubbard Place makes an impact at its start with a dramatic streetscape. The building is set back significantly from the road, and in front of it are two fountains running 80 feet in length. They’re accompanied by a garden where, according to Segal, you can find people from the neighborhood enjoying their lunch during the day.

Hubbard Place’s lobby is simultaneously expansive and intimate, with wood- paneled walls, high ceilings, artwork, and alcoves displaying Bernardaud china. — Hubbard Place’s lobby is simultaneously expansive and intimate, with wood-paneled walls, high ceilings, artwork, and alcoves displaying Bernardaud china.

Just past the porte-cochere, residents enter a stunning lobby, which features wood-paneled walls, high ceilings, artwork, and a series of mirror-backed alcoves displaying and lighting Bernardaud china from below.

Floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the building provide extraordinary views of the city, and some of the best can be found in the 29,000-square-foot amenities area that spans the entire ninth floor and opens to an outdoor deck. Inside is a two-way fireplace, a living green wall, a boardroom, a “Connect” computer station, a cinema room, a game room, a full fitness-yoga-spa center—with a Whirlpool spa, a sauna, and a steam room containing a glass wall that can be opened onto the deck during the summer—and the Hub Club lounge, which has a full chef’s kitchen. Outside is a spacious pool, a fire pit, a full kitchen with a grill station, and a series of seating areas and “little niches,” as Segal calls them, with their own grills.

The ninth floor also features a living green wall with a wide variety of flora. It keeps both the air and the decor of the Hub Club’s interior fresh all year round.

The building’s living spaces range from studios to two-bedrooms, and “they have the highest level of finishes we’ve ever done,” Segal says. The kitchens, for example, are outfitted with quartz countertops, peninsula-counter seating with custom-made pendant lighting, and Snaidero-designed Italian cabinetry (which is also included in the bathrooms). Eligna-brand oak flooring covers the common areas of each unit, there’s Berber carpeting in the bedrooms, and balconies and bay windows offer an extraordinary connection to the city.

The building’s 450 residential units range in size from studios to two-bedrooms, and Berber carpeting is optional in the sleeping areas of each living space.

Along the exterior, the balconies and bays are broken up by orange accents so that “people see something more than a monolithic structure,” Segal says. Tied to this orange is a four-color geometric pattern affixed to the façade of the building’s garage.

Levin founded the Habitat Company in 1971, and today it holds $2 billion in assets and manages more than 20,000 residential units. Through projects such as Hubbard Place, with their abundant amenities and inviting community features, the firm is living up to its founder’s original principal: “No project is only an investment in real estate. It is an investment in the future of the community and in the lives of the people who live and work there.”