Northwestern Medicine is planning its biggest addition to the Streeterville campus in years: a 24-story, roughly 1.2-million-square-foot patient tower at 330 East Erie Street in downtown Chicago, with a focus on cancer care.
Project Scope
Perkins&Will is the architect, and construction will be led by Power Construction with UJAMAA Construction. Before the tower can rise, crews have to clear a three-story basement left from the former Lakeside Veterans Affairs hospital that once occupied the site; Northwestern plans to file for a demolition permit in late 2026. Vertical construction is expected to begin in 2027 and finish around 2031. The health system has moved the project through Illinois’s facilities review board in stages as the design firmed up.
Why It Matters
A 1.2-million-square-foot tower on a dense downtown block is a logistics problem before it’s a medical one. The site sits inside an active academic medical campus, hemmed in by working hospital buildings, which means demolition, excavation, and steel all have to happen without interrupting patient care next door. The phased approach, permitting the basement teardown a year ahead of the tower, is how projects like this stay on schedule. For Chicago, it’s a large, long-duration healthcare job landing just as commercial work in the Loop stays soft, and a reminder that the biggest cranes downtown are increasingly over hospitals, not offices.
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Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | Northwestern Medicine |
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| Architect | Perkins&Will |
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| General Contractor | Power Construction / UJAMAA Construction |
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| Status | Planned |
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| Funding Source | Institutional |
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