Completion 14: 600 W. Chicago Ave./900 N. Kingsbury St./950 N. Kingsbury St.
Cost: $148 million

For three-quarters of a century, an avalanche of mail-order merchandise rolled out of the massive Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalog House in Chicago for delivery anywhere in the nation.

Teams on the renovation of the former warehouse, which was used as a merchandise depot for the now-defunct firm's catalog business, might have wondered about how it was all done. The structure's location on the banks of the Chicago River made maneuvering construction materials and equipment into the site difficult.

Only about 5 ft. separates the building's western face from the river, and the structure stretches for about 1,000 ft. along the waterway's North Branch.

Using a barge as a platform for staging was considered, but the high cost ruled that out.

Crews were forced to draw on the substantial staging area along the building's eastern face. A crane equipped with boom and jib allowed a horizontal reach of 170 ft., but that was about 100 ft. less than what was needed.

Small forklifts were used to move materials into those sections that could not reached. Some tenants with hoisting needs brought in their own cranes.

Residential, Commercial Spaces

The building was renovated to hold residential and commercial spaces. Server-based telecommunications equipment is also located in the structure.

The building, which underwent three additions when Montgomery Ward owned it, has two addresses because of its gigantic size: 600 W. Chicago Ave. and 900 N. Kingsbury St. A 175,000-sq.-ft. garage was added on the building's north end at 950 N. Kingsbury St. as part of the current project.

In total, the edifice now contains about 2.5 million sq. ft. of space. It was considered the world's largest concrete structure when Montgomery Ward originally built it.

The project's residential portion - sometimes called Domain - houses 298 units on floors seven through 11 at 900 N. Kingsbury St.

A large number of major construction activities went into the project.

This included interior demolition and build-out, exterior renovation and construction of the seven-story, post-tensioned garage. Two floors were added to the previously nine-story main structured, and a 15,000-sq.-ft. courtyard was created in the residential area.

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