Geothermal in a high-rise is a capital problem wearing an engineering costume.
Tree Street Group and development partner Magellan Development Group broke ground July 28 at 410 North Elizabeth Street in Fulton Market on what they say is Chicago’s first all-electric, geothermal multifamily high-rise. The first tower runs 33 storeys and 383 apartments against a $102 million construction loan. Archeo Design Studio designed it. Planning ran more than three years before anyone dug.
What the geothermal system actually delivers
A closed-loop bore field supplies more than 80% of heating, cooling and domestic hot water. The developers project a roughly 60% cut in energy use, more than 25% off energy costs, and about a 30% emissions reduction, or 390 tons of carbon a year. There’s no gas service to the building.
Those are projections, not metered results, and that distinction matters. The building won’t produce a real number until it’s occupied through a Chicago winter and a Chicago August, and the second one is the harder test for a ground loop that has to reject heat all summer into soil that never fully recovers.
Why most developers still say no
The bore field is a large cost that lands before lease-up and pays back over the hold period. Merchant developers who plan to sell in five to seven years are handing that return to the next owner, which is the whole reason gas keeps winning. Doing it at 33 storeys, with 77 of 383 units affordable, is the version other Chicago sponsors will actually study, because it pairs the expensive mechanical system with the constrained rent structure that usually kills it.
Principals Ed Kruschka and Ted Weldon lead Tree Street. J.R. Berger is president of Magellan.
The rest of the development
The two-tower plan totals more than 724 apartments and 28,000 square feet of public green space carrying outdoor retail, event space and a dog park. Tower one’s mix is 38 studios, 87 one-bedrooms, 256 two-bedrooms and two three-bedrooms. Public open space in Fulton Market is genuinely scarce; the district was cold storage and meatpacking a decade ago and got dense fast without much land set aside.
Full details are in the 410 North Elizabeth project listing.
If the operating numbers land near projection, the pitch for the next tower gets easy. If they don’t, this is the building everyone points at.