buildOn for a great cause!

The 5th anniversary buildOn Breakfast was held last week, Thursday, May 6th at the Hilton Chicago with great success. Over $380,000 was raised in support of the buildOn’s Chicago after-school programs and was highly attended by many of the city’s most influential business and civic leaders.

Among this group was the Lincoln Park 2520 team, in support of this tremendous cause, as well as for Peter Ricker, member of the buildOn Global Leaders Council and Breakfast co-chairman. Mr. Ricker is also half of the Ricker-Murphy Development team, currently establishing our newest Chicago Luxury condominium.

buildOn is a non-profit organization providing urban U.S. high school students the extra support needed to ensure their success through life and opening the door to education and opportunities. With programs designed to build confidence and real-world skills within American youth, buildOn equips communities around the globe with the tools to overcome the cycles of illiteracy, poverty and low expectations. Not only do the students of buildOn contribute hours of community service throughout their community, they also build schools in countries around the world. In Chicago, buildOn students have contributed nearly 85,000 hours of service, touching the lives of more than 161,000 homeless, children and senior citizens in their own neighborhoods.

You too can help out with this tremendous cause by either donating or volunteering in any of the many facets of the organizations; be it building a school on an Ambassador Trek or joining a Leadership Committee. We encourage you to get involved.

Leave us a message on facebook and let us know the different ways on how you contribute to your community.

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A LITTLE ABOUT THOMAS BALSLEY

With worldwide recognition for designing creative urban spaces from plazas and parks to waterfalls and streetscapes, Thomas Balsley Associates brings more than 30 years of its landscape design experience to Lincoln Park 2520 and its one-acre private garden, as well as all of its outdoor spaces. Balsley is in fact so renown for the work he has done with urban parks and exterior environments, that a park in New York City bears his name to this day: Balsley Park on 57th Street. In fact, in New York City alone, Mr. Balsley has designed more than 100 public parks and plazas. Other notable projects include Leeum Museum in Seoul, Gate City Park in Tokyo, Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles as well as Gantry Park, Riverside Park South and Chelsea Waterside Park, in New York City. Recent international design competitions won include the Magok Waterfront and the National Ecological Center in Korea, and Kasumi Plaza in Tokyo.

And for his first-ever Chicago park design, Lincoln Park 2520’s private garden is no simple feat. In fact, with its immediate proximity to all that Lincoln Park itself has to offer in amenities and natural beauty, our outdoor space needs to shine just to be noticed. And so it does and more. The private park at 2520 North Lakeview will be a magnificent feat of landscaping and provide the best of luxurious city leisure for our residents and their guests. With its tiered setting, and a combination of vast open space with small private moments of quiet solitude, the acre park is perfect for your evening stroll, your summer activities, or a picnic lunch amid the countless flower beds or under the shade of a umbrella-ed patio table.

Thomas Balsley’s reputation has been built by creating public spaces that enhance and enrich the lives of the individuals and communities who inhabit them. His practice has encompassed a range of design, including landscape architecture, urban design and site planning. His broad and balanced portfolio of award-winning projects clearly attest to his ability to manage the intricacies of the public review process, multiple client interests and challenging budgets and schedules without compromise to design quality. No project, upcoming or already constructed, could exemplify the beauty and grandeur of Thomas Balsley’s work more than our own Lincoln Park 2520. Visit our website today at www.LincolnPark2520.com to view the magic that is Thomas Balsley’s work and all that this wonderful residence will be bringing to Chicago.

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A LITTLE ABOUT LUCIEN LAGRANGE

Perhaps you’ve never had the pleasure to meet him, or only know him by his appearance on the Lincoln Park 2520 television commercial, but anyone who makes Chicago their home knows Lucien Lagrange by his effect on the city and its luxury homes alone.

Lucien Lagrange is creating a legacy that already has made him one of the most respected architects of this generation. His designs for contemporary skyscrapers, classically inspired commercial mixed-use structures and sophisticated renovations define the Chicago cityscape and have brought him international renown.

For 35 years, he has pursued his profession with recognizable intelligence, sensitivity, wit and style that influence all the projects his office creates. He is deeply involved in the process of understanding clients’ goals and constraints. His firm’s resources and experience with real estate, zoning, planning and other environmental factors are brought into play. Then, as the building progresses, his exquisite eye for detail sets the tone for the firm’s design decisions.

“I like the variety,” he says simply, describing the remarkable range of his work, from stone Beaux Arts façades to sleekly modern steel structures. “Variety keeps the work fresh; it fascinates me.”

“I like taking problems that are puzzling for owners and even other architects and creating ‘diabolically simple’ solutions. When we can cut through the confusion with a plan that makes the owner say ‘why, of course!’ that’s success,” he continues. “When it’s a large scale project where our solution represents both a major spatial statement and a remarkable business solution, the pleasure is even greater.”

Born in France, schooled in Montreal, Lucien describes his early training as deep and eclectic: “My education was composed of three elements: college summers spent learning the details of how to actually make commercial buildings; a university program that was strong on the cultural, economic and social context for architecture; and work directly with Bruce Graham, an incredible mind, who taught me how to think about architecture.” Before founding his own firm in 1985, Lucien Lagrange was at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he designed major office tower and retail projects, among others, across the nation.

Lucien Lagrange’s most recent work can, of course, be seen in the elegant planning of Lincoln Park’s next magnificent offering of luxury condominiums at Lincoln Park 2520 and its website. For a historic view of the breadth and depth of Lucien Lagrange’s work in modern architecture, look no further than his own website at www.lucienlagrange.com.

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