http://www.suntimes.com/business/roeder/178775,CST-FIN-roeder20.article
Sunrise plans to bring Lagrange to Uptown
December 20, 2006
[SIZE="2"]BY DAVID ROEDER Sun-Times Columnist[/SIZE]
Fawad Butt, chief operating officer of Sunrise Development Group, admits that it didn't take a lot of brains to make money in real estate the last few years. If you built it, the buyers came. But now he believes product niches and unique approaches will be needed to succeed, so that's the course he's charted for his young, Rogers Park-based company.
Butt has three residential deals in the works, including one that will bring highly regarded architect Lucien Lagrange to Uptown. Sunrise is finalizing a zoning deal with the city that will permit it to build 179 units in a Lagrange-designed complex in the 4700 block of North Clarendon, across the street from Weiss Memorial Hospital.
The project includes an 18-story building, plus low-rise segments.
Lagrange, known for both modern and classical buildings, has
been hired to take the modern approach, Butt said.
Sunrise's other deals, further in the planning stages, are a 13-story condo building due up at 24 S. Morgan, and a five-story complex planned at 2215 W. Madison. For the Morgan Street building, which will have 75 units, Butt is putting a little dash in the marketing.
He's promising a building with the feel of a boutique hotel, including a lounge reserved for residents, complete with big-screen TVs and billiards. How that will work for the condo association destined to take over the building, and decide whether to employ bartenders, remains to be seen. Butt said buyers crave "a central point of interaction" in new buildings, a place to hang out when they don't want to head out.