If views are your thing, you could do a lot worse than to live in a hallway at River Bend, the new 37-story highrise at 300 N Canal St designed by DeStefano & Partners.

This was the first highrise by a talented young architect named Robert Bistry, who has since left DeStefano to start his own firm, Built Form Architects, which designed the planned Avenue East tower in Streeterville.

In a surprising move, Bistry designed a single-loaded corridor on the building’s west side. It’s surprising because the sort of stunning city views you get from the west side of this highrise are seldom devoted to (some would say wasted on) corridors, and views equal money for real estate developers. The advantages, however, are terrific hallways flooded with light and a western face whose neat horizontal bands warmly punctuated by uniform interior lights make for a great addition to the nighttime skyline.

Form follows location

The tower snugly fits its site, at the confluence of the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River, with a soft curve that follows the river’s bend and gives the highrise its name. The interiors include both traditional units with 10-foot drywalled ceilings and “loft” units, with textured concrete ceilings that are 11 feet high. The 149-unit building also has four luxury townhouse units at its base, overlooking the river.

Despite the terrific design, however, developer Bejco struggled with stiff competition, a slower market for new homes and prices that were perceived as too high for a location west of the river. In 2003, Lehman Bros. took control of the project after Bejco defaulted on its loans.

Lehman reportedly bought Bejco’s stake in the highrise for $500,000 in a foreclosure proceeding. There were about 35 units remaining for sale when bailout artists the Radco Companies took over as developer.

By July 2005, only six units remained for sale – five condos and one townhouse – priced from $1.19 million to $2.3 million. The townhomes have three or four bedrooms, 4.5 baths and 3,700 to 6,100 square feet of living space. The condominiums have one to three bedrooms and 1,206 to 3,800 square feet. The building has 24-hour door staff, private storage, a party room with kitchen, a conference room, a private riverfront terrace and a fitness center with a steam room, sauna, Whirlpool and massage rooms.

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