The long-dormant Harris Trust & Savings Bank building at 111 W. Monroe is finally stirring again, with the city signing off on an interior demolition permit that lets crews start gutting floors of old office space. The work clears the way for roughly 345 apartments stacked above a 226-room hotel, plus a comeback for the historic Monroe Club on the roof, reimagined as a pool-and-restaurant hangout. In all, about 315,000 square feet of former office space is slated for conversion, with a sizeable affordable housing set-aside in the mix.
Permit clears interior work
City permit records show that a renovation and alteration permit for 111 W. Monroe was approved on April 7, 2026, according to Chicago Cityscape. As Urbanize Chicago has reported, the interior demolition filing allows contractor Break Thru Enterprises Inc. to start clearing the building in preparation for the residential and hotel buildout. The permit applies to interior work only, with exterior restoration and landmarked elements to be handled under separate approvals.
What's planned inside the landmark
Developer team Prime/Capri Interest LLC - a partnership of The Prime Group and Capri Investment Group - and designer Stantec are steering a mixed-use conversion that puts a hotel on the lower floors with 345 mixed-income residences above, according to reporting by Chicago YIMBY. Plans call for a 16,000-square-foot ballroom on the second floor, along with spa and fitness spaces, and a revival of the Monroe Club rooftop as a restaurant and pool deck. Renderings also show a new light well cut into the rear of the structure to pull daylight into interior-facing units.
Money and the affordable units
The financing stack leans heavily on public support and tax credits. The residential portion is slated to use about $40 million in TIF support, according to WTTW, while the hotel side is expected to receive an approximate $19.4 million Class L property tax incentive, per reporting compiled by Propmodo. Developers also plan to tap Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity and Federal Historic Tax Credits to help cover restoration and buildout costs. About 104 units, roughly 30 percent of the new residences, will be reserved for households earning about 60 percent of area median income, according to WTTW.
City backing and neighborhood context
The project is part of the LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative aimed at bringing housing back into the Financial District. City Council and its Finance Committee signed off on the plan and associated TIF support in spring 2025 votes, as the Sun-Times reported. The classical 1911 section of the building received local landmark designation in 2025, according to City Council records on Chicago Councilmatic, a move that locks in key exterior features while allowing an interior adaptive reuse. Council coverage also noted aldermen raising concerns about minority-participation commitments on LaSalle projects and pressing developers on those points as part of the subsidy approvals.
Timeline and what to watch
With the interior permit issued, contractor mobilization can begin, but developers have yet to post a firm completion date in city paperwork. Urbanize Chicago noted that there was no official timeline available at the time of its reporting. Developer materials on Capri Investment Group indicate that construction is expected to begin later this year and wrap up in the first half of 2027. As permits are picked up and notices to proceed are filed with the Department of Buildings, the long-quiet block of Monroe should start to look a lot more like an active construction zone.
