The Ally building exterior
1229 W. Concord Place is the first completed structure at Lincoln Yards. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ

What’s That Building? 1229 W. Concord Place

The first completed piece of the Lincoln Yards megadevelopment was designed with life sciences companies in mind.

1229 W. Concord Place is the first completed structure at Lincoln Yards. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ
The Ally building exterior
1229 W. Concord Place is the first completed structure at Lincoln Yards. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ

What’s That Building? 1229 W. Concord Place

The first completed piece of the Lincoln Yards megadevelopment was designed with life sciences companies in mind.

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A new eight-story building on the edge of the Chicago River looks like a stack of white ribs with bands of glass. The structure is hard to miss given its height in an area where much of the land has been scraped flat for new development.

The 320,000-square-foot building at Concord and Throop, 1229 W. Concord Place, is the first completed piece of the massive Lincoln Yards, a planned development approved by city officials in 2019 for 53 acres of formerly industrial land along the North Branch.

Over the next 10 years, Lincoln Yards developer Sterling Bay expects to build about 14.5 million square feet of offices, residential units, restaurants and more. If all that happens, 1229 W. Concord Place will be dwarfed by towers as much as four times its height.

Lincoln Yards rendering
A rendering of what Lincoln Yards is expected to look like once completed. Courtesy of Sterling Bay

But for now, 1229 W. Concord Place stands out as the biggest visual piece of Sterling Bay’s massive overhaul of an old manufacturing district. Their plan also includes three new bridges over the North Branch, a renovation of the Clybourn Metra platform — one of the dreariest in the city’s rail system — new water taxi stops, sports fields and parks.

Designed by the architecture firm Gensler, 1229 W. Concord Place’s exterior looks like a standard office building, but with its corners rounded and large covered balconies on the river side.

Inside, there’s an expansive first-floor lobby and events area — and a dramatic spiral staircase.

spiral staircase under construction inside the Ally at Lincoln Yards
A large spiral staircase sits inside the Ally. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ

The floors above, 43,000 square feet each, were empty when WBEZ’s Reset toured the building last week. The whole structure is intended for life sciences companies, meaning the creators of new medicines, medical devices, biomedical technologies and related products.

Dr. Suzet McKinney, Sterling Bay’s director of life sciences, said the floors will be built custom for tenants, depending on how much lab and office space they need.

McKinney said no leases had been signed as of March 2.

The building is laid out with the concept that each floor’s office space would be on the north side, and research laboratory space would be on the south side, with a wall of glass allowing for panoramic views of Goose Island in the foreground and the downtown skyline in the background.

Goose Island seen from above with downtown Chicago skyline in background
Glass walls allow for panoramic views of Goose Island and downtown Chicago. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ

“It’s a beautiful environment that will spark creativity and innovation in these scientists and entrepreneurs,” said McKinney, the former executive director of the Illinois Medical District.

Every floor also has a large east-facing balcony, with views across Lincoln Park to the lake.

The idea of starting with a life sciences building turned out to be timely, McKinney said. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people work remotely, leaving office buildings nearly empty. “[However], you can’t do your scientific experiments at home in your kitchen,” McKinney said.

More important, McKinney said, is Chicago needs life sciences space.

“The challenge for Chicago for decades has been that we have almost all of the driving factors that make for a life sciences market, but what we don’t have is class-A laboratory space,” she said.

The elements the city does have, McKinney said, include top-tier research universities, the academic side of hospitals, a pool of venture capital funding and a history of life sciences companies, including Baxter, Abbott and Abbvie, a spinoff of Abbott.

And small research startups, when they have the venture capital to grow, need lab space.

man in neon yellow jacket walks up spiral staircase with window in background
The view from the spiral staircase inside the Ally. K’Von Jackson for WBEZ

Sterling Bay isn’t the only firm hoping to provide it. Among others is Trammell Crow, which put up a 400,000-square-foot life sciences building in Fulton Market that opened last year and in February started a 300,000-square-footer near the University of Chicago. There’s also a half a million-square-foot life sciences piece of the 8-million-foot Bronzeville Lakefront plan from a partnership of several entities.

And Sterling Bay’s Lincoln Yards plans include two more life sciences buildings with a combined 500,000 square feet.

Although it’s not yet leased up, 1229 W. Concord Place is the start of a big transition for Lincoln Yards. The development began to take shape in 2016 when Sterling Bay bought the 22-acre site of Finkl Steel on Cortland Street, about four blocks north of 1229 W. Concord Place. Finkl, a heavy industry site, for years sat next to the Clybourn Avenue shopping corridor, like an immovable western boundary for Lincoln Park.

In 2017, Sterling Bay bought 18 acres, including what is now 1229 W. Concord Place, from the city for $104.7 million. Since the mid-1990s, the city’s fleet and facility management department has been on the land, which Chicago acquired in 1990.

Lincoln Yards rendering of green space
This rendering shows what part of the $6 billion Lincoln Yards megadevelopment will look like, including green spaces for office workers and residents. Courtesy of Sterling Bay

From 1930 to 1990, the site was part of a Procter & Gamble factory complex that took up about a block and a half along the North Branch. Before the factory closed, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble made Lava, Camay and Safeguard bar soaps and Liquid Ivory hand soap there, employing 275 people.

On the southern portion of the Procter & Gamble site, next to where 1229 W. Concord Place now sits, is one of 15 Home Depots that opened in the Chicago area in the mid-1990s. The store is still operating, its parking lot jammed on weekdays with homebuilding contractors’ trucks and on weekends with homeowners’ cars and SUVs.

Redeveloping that parcel with a home supply retail store was the first round of turning the old industrial land to a softer and more modern use. Almost three decades later, there’s a new phase, beginning with 1229 W. Concord Place.

Dennis Rodkin is the residential real estate reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business and Reset’s “What’s That Building?” contributor. Follow him on Twitter @Dennis_Rodkin.

K’Von Jackson is the freelance photojournalist for Reset’s “What’s That Building?” Follow him on Instagram @true_chicago.