Ribbon cut for The Bellwether Residences, office-to-residential conversion in downtown Chicago
Chicago city leaders on Wednesday hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new apartment building converted from an office building downtown.
The Bellwether Residences are located in the historic Rector Building at 79 W. Monroe St., at the southeast corner of the intersection with Clark Street.
Mayor Brandon Johnson was present for the ribbon-cutting Wednesday, as were Ald. Bill Conway (34th), Chicago Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Cier Boatright, and Chicago Department of Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda.
While a short distance removed from LaSalle Street, the city said the $64.2 million Bellwether Residences project is the first completed office-to-residential conversion under Mayor Johnson's LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative.
The initiative started when COVID hit the Loop hard.
"We called upon our private partners to reimagine the Loop, transforming it from an office monoculture into a neighborhood that can live and breathe and work and socialize," Mayor Johnson said.
The Bellwether project was led by developer R2 with city funding. It converted 11 floors of vacant office space into 117 mixed-income residential units, with 41 designated as affordable for households earning an average of 60% of the area's median income.
The Bellwether is composed of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments, along with indoor and outdoor amenities.
The 1905 building has a Walgreens on the ground floor, and is best known for the iconic Weather Bell sign, originally mounted for Bell Federal Savings in 1951 and recently restored as part of the Bellwether Project.
The building was constructed for restaurateur Charles E. Rector, and is the oldest still-standing commercial high-rise designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt.
The LaSalle Reimagined Initiative started in 2022 under Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Its goal is to convert vacant spaces along the LaSalle Street corridor downtown into mixed-income residences and other community amenities.
The Bellwether project was one of six advanced through the initiative.
