You can get a sense of the scale of the $900 million BMO Tower, part of the Union Station redevelopment, when you review building permit filings for the past week.
The four largest permits recorded by the City of Chicago for the week, totalling $22.14 million, in the city’s permits portal were conveyancing device permits issued to Kone Elevator for the structure at 310 S. Canal St.
General contractor Clark Construction Group was issued a permit in the spring valued at $321 million for the “new construction of a 46 story office building to include two levels of below-grade parking and ground floor as per plans.” Published reports have put the project’s overall value at $900 million, and developers obtained a $476 million construction loan last winter for the 1.5 million sq. ft. skyscraper next to Union Station.
John O’Donnell, CEO of Riverside Investment and Development, said in a paid Chicago Tribune post last winter that BMO Harris Bank, Bank of America and Citizens Bank funded the loan.d
Riverside is developing the tower with another Chicago-based developer, Convexity Properties, which is the real estate investment arm of trader Don Wilson’s DRW Holdings, the published report said.
Subtrades listed in the March building permit include: Electrical – Titan Electric LLC,; masonry contractor – Goebel Forming, Inc. and Jimmy’Z Masonry Corp.; plumber/plumbing – Great Lakes Plumbing & Heating; and refrigeration and ventilation – Hill Mechanical.
This piece is a good reminder of how much of a skyscraper budget is actually hidden inside vertical transportation systems.
What stands out is that the BMO Tower elevator package alone cost about $22.14 million as part of a roughly $900 million development—handled by KONE as the elevator supplier.
That scale makes sense when you break it down: modern high-rises aren’t just about structure and façade anymore. A large portion of cost goes into high-speed elevators, destination dispatch systems, controls, and redundancy planning, because vertical movement is what determines building efficiency and tenant experience.