Bringing deep local knowledge to the metro area and submarkets
As a trusted national architecture, engineering and construction consulting firm, Marx|Okubo works with real estate owners, investors and lenders—at every point of the property lifecycle—to evaluate their building projects, solve complex challenges and implement tailored solutions.
In our Midwest region, our Chicago team uses its collective design-firm and owner’s representation experience to bring a comprehensive understanding of Chicago building, zoning, and energy codes to clients along with knowledge of the Chicago metro area and submarkets.
With rich and varied experience in new construction, renovation, and rehabilitation, our Chicago team’s expertise spans asset types such as commercial, multifamily residential, office, retail, entertainment and restaurant projects. Both the passion and experience of the team have roots in sustainability through the non-traditional lenses of adaptive reuse, renovation, and historic preservation, which can bring more dimension and challenges than new construction. We understand that these projects come with complex budgets and the potential for unforeseen design conditions and the layers of investigation, review and approval all have an impact on the project.
While being our clients’ eyes and ears on construction sites, our team performs forensic investigations to assist clients in every aspect of problem solving, ranging from value engineering to remediation.
Current projects in Chicago.
The Residences at the St. Regis
The Residences at the St. Regis (fka Vista Tower), now the third tallest building in the Chicago skyline, is a 95-story multifamily new construction project by developer Magellan, designed by prominent architect Jeanne Gang, with a 5-star hotel (St. Regis), restaurants and amenity spaces. Defining a new edge of the city, the tower tightly knits the downtown Lakeshore East community to its surroundings with unprecedented urban connections and enhanced public access to the Chicago River. Marx|Okubo entered the project at a transitional point, where the base building was nearly complete, and a second general contractor was hired to build out the 5-star hotel component. Marx|Okubo evaluated the property and monitored the remainder of construction, providing oversight through substantial completion by the original general contractor. Our team reviewed budgets and contingency usage and oversaw of the hotel construction by the second general contractor. With a stop in the construction work and a reallocation of scope to a second contractor, Marx|Okubo’s expertise and close involvement helped to determine that the appropriate scope was being completed within budget and by the correct party.
345 Morgan
345 Morgan is a 200,000-square-foot high-rise, new-construction Class A+ office project by developer Sterling Bay, built in the thriving Fulton Market neighborhood, with commercial office spaces and amenities that will serve as the headquarters and showrooms for several different companies, such as Humanscale, HNI/AllSteel, Jasper, and HAVI. Marx|Okubo’s team review for the project started with the initial core and shell construction, working with the general contractor and local developer to ensure the quality and execution were met despite the accelerated construction schedule of only 15 months. At the completion of core and shell work, we were engaged to review the tenant improvement (TI) construction of the five tenants that were under contract.
