The Evanston skyline is bolder and brighter with the addition of the 28-story Sherman Plaza, a residential and retail development capturing Lake Michigan panoramas.

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It's a city jewel that began as simple garage renovation.

In the 1920s, the three major retail meccas in the Chicago area were the Loop, Oak Park and Evanston. Then came World War II and the emergence of regional shopping malls, and shoppers followed.

Evanston, with its university and lakefront, fared better than many suburbs, but continually looked for ways to maintain its downtown vitality.

About a decade ago, city planners saw that the 30-year-old, 600-space public garage on Sherman Avenue needed work. Engineers said it should be torn down and rebuilt.

That led to the question about what else should be built. Ideas for a more comprehensive construction project flowed, and were revised multiple times.

"With each glitch, with each change, we got a much better project than the one that was originally proposed," said Assistant City Manager Judith Aiello.

The $190 million project, the highest-dollar mixed-use project in Evanston, is a joint venture between Focus Development Inc. in Northfield and Klutznick-Fisher Development Co. in Chicago.

"Sherman Plaza gives us a wide range of modern space needs which also allows us to build upon our strengths," Aiello said. That and other recent construction "achieve our goal of a 24/7 downtown."

Anchoring the project is the condominium tower, The Residences at Sherman Plaza, which houses 253 lofts, penthouses and apartment-style condominiums. The units, which are sold out, range in size from 900 sq. ft. to 4,000 sq. ft. and were priced between the upper $200s and $1.9 million.

The tower would have been the city's tallest building, but early design changes took it just inches below the Chase Building. As it stands, it is the city's tallest residential building, said Focus Project Manager Mike de Lannoy.

The tower connects to 152,000 sq. ft. of retail space on two levels and a 1,585-space public parking garage, creating an L-shaped footprint. All together, Sherman Plaza encompasses nearly a city block, bordered by Church and Davis streets and Sherman and Benson avenues and previously occupied by parking.

Seeking Human Scale

The enormity of the project, from a design standpoint, is visually scaled to human size.

Although basically a single, poured-in-place concrete building, the various areas of use stand at differing heights and sport differing facades. The first six floors and the entire retail center are clad in brick. The three penthouse floors, 23 through 25, are tiered like a wedding cake and ribboned with high-performance, floor-to-ceiling windows. They are crowned with a three-story mechanical penthouse. The silo-like garage elevator is encased in glass.

OKW Architects Inc. in Chicago serves as architect of record, and Daniel P. Coffey & Associates Ltd., also in Chicago, serves as design architect.

"Each retail building is meant to look like a different building," said project architect Tim Schmitt of OKW. "They have different colors and scales of brick and different window spacings, which allow it to look like not one massive development done at one time, but kind of integrated projects. It's very contextual."

"The condominium and retail areas each have their own little bit of character," said architect Daniel Coffey. "The elevator tower is clearly understandable as a destination."

One of the hallmarks of Focus construction is sky-high green space, and Sherman Plaza is no exception. The building meets lot lines, but rooftop gardens on the third, fifth and seventh floors are decked with trees, shrubs, grass and flowers and provide nearly half an acre of outdoor respite for condominium residents.

Had Numerous Obstructions

After years of planning, construction of Sherman Plaza began in December 2004.

There was no basement to excavate, but the caissons required drilling about 70 ft.

Underground were numerous and costly obstructions due to poor ground conditions and deep foundations of previous buildings on the site. "Potholing," which is making trial bores, helped locate obstructions near grade, but for deeper ones, crews had to widen their holes or try harder to get through.

In one case, the rock was impenetrable despite numerous attempts. Finally the decision was made to drill two additional caissons about 10 ft. on either side of the rock and to lay a bridge beam across them so that the column support could be put in as planned. That bit of unanticipated engineering added $90,000 to the tab.

"When you put together your budget for a building like this, you have a contingency amount and this is some of the stuff you use that for," de Lannoy said. "You try to avoid it but you can never avoid paying some extra."

Cost increases for materials, including steel, copper and plastics, also pinched the budget, although contract pricing helped, de Lannoy said.

"I think we used about 2,500 tons of rebar total," he added. "We ordered as early as we could, but you have to order it as you need it. You can't have steel sitting around. It takes up too much room."

Accommodating Evanston Logistics

The project had other issues as well. For one, an endeavor of this magnitude, within a bustling urban environment, calls for careful attention to logistics. It takes lots of planning and scheduling, de Lannoy said.

"Just getting the trucks in - on a busy day there could be 80 trucks," he said. "We're on three busy streets in downtown Evanston, and the city is very sensitive to street closures. Sometimes we'd stage the trucks a couple of blocks away and call them in on the radio as we need them."

Concrete had to be timed precisely; if it sat in a truck too long, the load had to be rejected, de Lannoy added.

"It all has to do with how long it takes the truck to get to the site," he said.

Yet another headache was the high winds coming in from Lake Michigan. On many days the winds exceeded 50 mph, causing the tower crane to be shut down and delaying the project. By mid-spring, the schedule was a month behind.

The initial closings on the condominium units will begin this summer, which is later than planned, but the overall closing schedule will be speeded up to meet the original completion date of July 2007.

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