Look at Ward's Now

The 26-story tower on West Chicago Avenue that previously housed the headquarters of Montgomery Ward & Co. will be converted to high-end condominiums, according to a report in Crain's Chicago Business.

Centrum Properties Inc. (Chicago) and New York financier Angelo Gordon & Co., which bought the home of the bankrupt retailer for $20 million, have hired Skidmore Owings & Merrill of Chicago and expect to spend $100 million on the renovation, including recladding the building in glass and aluminum.

Crain's reports that the 26-story tower will be gutted and converted into 200 condominiums priced from $350,000 to $1.5 million.

Plans call for the building, to be called The Montgomery, to resemble “a trendy Ian Schrager boutique hotel or a modern-art museum,” says Crain's, “and to include such amenities as a rooftop Japanese garden, a 20,000-square-foot lobby with 26-foot ceilings and a high-end restaurant.”