The dancer/welder in ”Flashdance” had one. So did Nick Nolte as the impassioned artist in ”New York Stories.”
After all, if you`re going to dance or paint in your living room, you`re going to need the space and eclectic ambience that a loft provides.
Even if you`re just planning on living in them, lofts, usually fashioned from abandoned factories, schools or hospitals, often fit the bill. Tucked into both predominantly industrial and residential city neighborhoods, they`re growing in number and popularity.
Though traditionally offered as rental units, lofts in the last few years have also become popular as condominiums.
And while the stereotypical image of a loft is one of a sprawling warehouse space with enough room to hold a volleyball tournament and enough rough edges to retain that industrial feeling, loft styles have evolved as well: These traditional ”hard” lofts, as they`re called in real estate lingo, now represent only one end of the spectrum.
At the other end are the ”soft” lofts, which are in these same types of formerly commercial buildings but have more traditional apartment features:
partitions, carpeting and other ”softening” touches.
”The soft loft tries to take away some of the harshness of hard lofts that some people find objectionable,” says Ronald Shipka Jr., vice president of Enterprise Development Co. ”It serves two purposes: it`s cosmetic and it helps to eliminate the noise problem,” he says.
Added to the mix are an assortment of lofts that fall somewhere in between.
”This soft-loft business, I think, is a confusing term because the boundaries between the so-called hard loft and the soft loft are really cloudy and gray,” says Duncan Henderson, a developer whose loft conversion projects include the rehabbing of two buildings in the South Loop Printer`s Row area.
During the past 15 years, the area has undergone extensive redevelopment, changing from a predominantly industrial area to a neighborhood where residences and businesses mingle.
”Printer`s Row is probably the most unrecognized gem in Chicago,”
Henderson says. Henderson redeveloped the first loft conversion in Printer`s Row, the 104-unit Donohue building at 701-733 S. Dearborn St., in 1977.
In 1988, the Franklin building, at 720 S. Dearborn, another of Henderson`s projects, opened. The 14-story building, built in 1917 and formerly used by printing tradesmen, has 64 units, 44 of them sold. They sell for $125,000 to $750,000 and offer from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet of living space.
Designed by architect George C. Nimmons, the building`s condominiums are what Henderson calls ”very finished.” Unlike some loft buildings that have retained their open freight elevators and other industrial touches, the Franklin building has art deco lighting fixtures in the hallways and elevators as elaborate as those in any modern office building.
Divide and conquer
The units are divided, or semi-divided, into rooms with plasterboard walls, and they have very high ceilings (the penthouse suite has dramatically vaulted ceilings). Some units feature exposed brick walls and hardwood floors but there are no wooden beams, sprinkler heads or exposed pipes to be seen.
A typical Franklin building ”one-bedroom” condominium features a kitchen, bathroom and one huge room that can be divided, as the owner sees fit, into a bedroom, living room and/or dining room. The divisions can be made with the creative placement of furniture, but there are no walls to delineate the end of one room and the beginning of the next.
And creative touches, bordering on the eccentric, are encouraged by the units` layouts.”We had one person put in a waterfall,” Henderson says.
”They put in plantings around a stone wall.”
Lofts have enjoyed a recent surge of popularity, developers say, because they leave more decisions up to the owner rather than the developer. ”The advantage is the creativity of the space,” says Shipka. ”It allows people to do what they want to do with the space. You have some people who run businesses out of their homes. We have quite a few people. Typically they`re art people-painting, sculpting.”
The hard facts
Like Henderson, Shipka has developed both ”soft” and ”hard” loft projects. For example, the Noble Street Lofts, a 67-unit development at 515 N. Noble St. on the Near West Side, could be classified as ”hard” or ”true”
lofts, Shipka says, because they have exposed beams and plumbing.
Hard lofts are often more affordable and provide an alternative for buyers just entering the real estate market. ”Most of the loft buyers are first-time buyers,” Shipka says, ”typically because the loft product is inexpensive, compared to townhouses.”
Lofts developed by Enterprise generally range from $95,000 to $175,000, he says. As with other condominiums, each owner pays a a monthly assessment that covers maintenance, water, building insurance and scavenger service costs.
Shipka admits there are some problems that are peculiar to lofts.
”Sound insulation is always a problem with loft living,” he says. ”You have sound transmission because of the way the buildings are constructed.”
Buyers should thoroughly investigate potential problems before deciding on a purchase, developers warn. ”A lot of people don`t know what they`re buying,” Henderson says. ”They come in and fall in love with a `touchy feel`-the floors, the beams. Later they find out the heat doesn`t work, there`s no central air-conditioning, (there`s) noise.”
Not so rough
On the North Side, the Embassy Club`s Amhurst soft loft development opened last year in a four-story converted factory at Southport and Wrightwood Avenues.
”It has a little more residential feel to it-not such a rough finish,”
says Garrison Benson, vice president of marketing for the developer, MCL Development Co. The 65 loft units, priced from $129,900 to $425,000, are part of a $65-million MCL renovation project that also includes 112 townhouses and 22 single-family homes on the 7-acre site.
”Originally, the loft concept was taking raw factory space” and making it habitable. ”We did a hybrid. There are the high ceilings but there are finished walls.”
Mary Cook, 31, who owns an interior merchandising business, moved into her one-bedroom Amhurst loft a month ago. ”I looked at lofts as well as conventional apartments,” she says. ”I decided on the Amhurst because of the way they laid them out.”
The apartment has 12-foot ceilings, a bedroom that is separated from the rest of the unit by a lofted platform, a fireplace and ”lots of natural light.”
Developer John Wertymer`s concept of loft living emphasizes the vastness a loft can provide.
Lofts, he says, have ”high ceilings and just wide-open spaces-the interior equivalent to Montana.”
Wertymer`s Manchester Lofts, at 2035 W. Charleston St. in Bucktown, measure between 2,000 and 4,000 square feet.
Eleven of the 18 units, priced from $224,500 to $283,500, have been sold. ”The ceiling is drywalled, the duct work is soffited. We have all new hardwood floors because the old wood floors weren`t salvageable,” Wertymer says.
The E-shaped building was a hospital built 100 years ago run by All Saints Church, which is adjacent to the site.
Some Manchester lofts have all the trimmings, including large master suites with whirlpool tubs, fireplaces and Eurostyle cabinetry among the custom touches.
Others are sold with only the necessities in place-a furnace, an electrical panel.
Either way, what was once old can become new with adequate financial and creative investments.
Says Wertymer, ”It`s unusual, and with the high ceilings and the space and the light, it`s a nice way to live.”
