The nicest thing that can be said about many of River North's newest residential buildings is that they’re serviceable – big, bland concrete columns that give people a place to go after work. Developers Pete Birmingham and Tony Schillaci said they wanted to take the opposite approach with 30 W Erie, an intimate condo building that will have a vintage look and only two units per floor.

"One of the nicest things about the building, which I guess you could call a boutique building, is that it’s all brick and stone," said Birmingham, of Schillaci Birmingham Development. “It’s not the typical steel and glass or concrete and glass that you see around here. There’s a nice copper mansard roof and nice detailing; it’s very elegant looking.”

The building will have only 20 units – two per floor – which were priced from $1.1 million to nearly $1.6 million in July 2005. All of the homes have three bedrooms, 2.5 baths, libraries and two private balconies, with 2,288 to 2,775 square feet.

Single-family privacy

Buyers looking for second and even third homes have been drawn to 30 W Erie, according to Birmingham, as have empty nesters from the suburbs and beyond. People used to living in large single-family homes like the large square footage, privacy and intimate scale of a building that’s just 13 stories, as well as the brick and limestone look.

“A lot of people looking at 30 W Erie are coming from larger homes,” Birmingham said. “They’re all brick and many are fairly traditional. It’s harder to find that downtown. A lot of what they’re looking at here is very contemporary – all concrete with not a lot of character to it.”

But keeping the floor plate to two units per floor helps with more than just privacy. The layouts at 30 W Erie are essentially square, unlike the long, narrow floor plans offered at many highrises, and each unit has three outside walls, providing plenty of light, and two balconies.

A sales center and model unit for the development are located on the fourth floor of the building. Units began delivering in the summer of 2007.

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