Demolition of old East Lakeview medical building to begin after Labor Day to make way for high-rise

Large-scale demolition of the former Stone Medical Center building in Chicago's East Lakeview community is set to begin after Labor Day.

The building at 2800 N. Sheridan Rd. is set to come down to make way for a new 28-story residential high-rise complex on the site.

A demolition update shared by the development team and posted to Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th)'s office website said the team has decided to wait until after Labor Day for demolition to minimize impacts on neighbors during the summer.

Site preparation, including installation of construction fencing and the demolition of a small structure along the alley behind the medical building, will take place in early August, according to developers.

Between Sept. 7 to Oct. 19, the medical building is scheduled to be leveled. It is composed of an atrium at the northwest corner of Diversey Parkway and Sheridan Road, a three-story portion facing Sheridan Road, and a seven-story portion fronting Diversey Parkway.

The new building set to be constructed at the site was originally to stand 24 stories tall with 303 apartments, but plans this past March increased the height to 28 stories, or 330 feet, and the number of apartments to 355.

The plan for the building also calls for ground-floor retail — with 10,000 square feet each of retail and office space — as well as medical offices on the second floor and a 25,000-square-foot fitness club on the fourth.

The building would include 71 affordable units.

The building will also feature 152 parking spaces and 355 bicycle parking spaces, according to the plans released in March.

Plans for the building call for a three-tier "sculpted tower," described previously by Urbanize Chicago as featuring three staggered volumes of residential space rising into the air, and beneath them, a "podium" featuring ground-level retail.

The project would also build over a parking lot on Sheridan Road that used to serve the medical building, but is now out of use and closed off.

The new building would be made of bird-friendly glass, according to Lawson's office.

The building now standing at 2800 N. Sheridan Rd. has been home for many years to the Ida and Norman H. Stone Medical Center, housing doctors' offices and other medical facilities. Many of the offices have been associated with nearby Ascension St. Joseph Hospital.

The building is fronted by an atrium that greets those headed to doctor's appointments with lush greenery and curving ramps as they head to the elevator.

Many medical offices that were housed in the building have since relocated to the nine-story Ascencion St. Joseph outpatient building at 2845 N. Sheridan Rd. about a block away. Some offices remain open and active in the Stone Medical Center building, but a spokesperson for developers said it is expected to be vacated by the end of the month.

As recounted by the blog Connecting the Windy City, what became the Stone Medical Center building opened in 1951 as the headquarters for the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.

The Amalgamated Meat Cutters merged with the Retail Clerks International Union to form the United Food & Commercial Workers in 1979. Chicago Public Art reported that the union headquarters moved to Washington, D.C., that year, and the building was sold to St. Joseph Hospital.

Developers bought the Stone Medical Center building from Ascension Health for $17.25 million late last year, according to CoStar.

The Stone Medical Center building is also home to a pair of sculptures called the Brotherhood Monument, which date back to the meat cutters' union days. Sculptor Egon Weiner created two identical bronze statues for the building — one facing Diversey Parkway, the other Sheridan Road.

The Brotherhood Monument sculptures each depict four kneeling figures, two men and two women, in a circle with their hands on each other's shoulders. The figures represent the peoples of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, the Chicago Public Art guide reported.

The latest plans for the site shared on the 44th Ward website indicated that the Brotherhood Monument statues are set to be preserved and relocated. A rendering in the plans depicted at least one of them being placed outside the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1546, at 1649 W. Adams St. on the Near West Side, though there was no text indicating that this move was the final plan.

Back in March, the alderman's office said the developer would "either keep the sculptures on site as part of the new development, or partner with the Chicago Park District or another organization to place them on display elsewhere in the city."

CBS News Chicago has reached out to the developer's representatives for more details on the plans for the sculptures.