Photography: Yvonne Rusin and Rusty Clements/Baird & Warner

Westmont From $365,000 to $465,000

Efforts by the municipal leaders of Westmont to bring a few posh restaurants into the downtown area may get a bit of a boost from another newcomer to the village’s core: an attractive red brick condo building meant to appeal to urban and upscale buyers.

On a block formerly occupied by a grocery store, D Thomas Properties has built a handsome four-story structure-called Richmond Station-whose gables, inset balconies, and archways bring a new level of sophistication to this small western suburb. “We didn’t want any cinder block,” says Domenic Fotino, a partner in D Thomas, “just a real traditional look with the red brick.”

The building has retail spaces on the ground level and 24 residential units on its upper three floors. At press time, two of the residential units had been sold; what remained started at $365,000 for a 1,291-square-foot space with two bedrooms and two baths, and topped off with $465,000 for a 1,657-square-foot condo with two bedrooms and two balconies. The building was scheduled for completion in July.

Photography: Diane Wells/Camelot Realty

West Ridge From $315,000 to $530,000

Bar None
Pub makes way for condos

In West Ridge, the latest casualty of the teardown craze is not a house but a longtime neighborhood pub that had been open since at least the 1930s. On that site (at 2310 West Touhy Avenue), MC&J Development has built a four-story condo building named the Pinewood, a nod to its predecessor. “My parents went there on a date in the 1950s,” says Rich Aronson, a member of the development team. “I have good memories of the Pinewood, but Jim [Brockhagen, the longtime owner] was ready to move on.”

The building has 13 condos, each with a balcony and one parking space included in the purchase price (additional spaces cost $18,000 for outdoor parking, $25,000 for indoor). Eight condos remain, ranging from a $315,000 two-bedroom home with 1,500 square feet of space to a $530,000 three-bedroom duplex with 2,500 feet of space. The latter is one of two two-story units, each with three different outdoor spaces of its own. The building offers immediate occupancy.

Photoillustration: Image Fiction

River North From $275,900 to $671,900

A Touch of Silver for Downtown Gateway
A new Ohio Street tower will greet drivers as they exit the Kennedy Expressway

The distinctive bracketed top of a new 39-story condo tower will become a kind of gatepost at the Ohio Street ramp from the Kennedy Expressway into the highly trafficked River North neighborhood. Silver Tower, a project of Stonegate Development that is under construction at 303 West Ohio Street, will have 225 condos, an 11th-floor “sky lobby,” and a rooftop terrace and dog run on the 39th floor. About 160 Silver Tower condos had been sold by press time, including nearly all of the two- and three-bedroom floor plans. Most of the remaining units were one bedroom or one bedroom plus den. Of those, the lowest-priced condo is a 728-square-foot one-bedroom unit priced at $275,900; at the high end, $671,900 buys an 1,810-square-foot two-bedroom unit. Occupancy is scheduled for early 2008.

Adjacent to the Silver Tower site is the Bowne Building, an eight-story relic of the neighborhood’s old industrial era. Stonegate was going to put office lofts there, but “with the success of Silver Tower, we’re going back to the city to ask for permission to put residential in there, too,” says Sam Persico, the company’s president.