Former Salesforce Office To Be Filled With Residents As River North Building Becomes Apartments

Two Chicago firms are nearing completion on an office-to-residential conversion in a River North building that used to be home to Salesforce.

Chicago-area firms Path Construction and WindWave Real Estate will welcome the first residents to 111 W. Illinois St. on May 22. Construction, which started in August 2025, continues on the building’s upper floors, and the entire property is expected to be complete July 1.

The $64.5 million project, called 111 Point, is one of seven office-to-residential conversions under construction in Chicago, according to data from CoStar.

River North has become a hotbed for conversion projects as nearly a quarter of office space in the neighborhood remains vacant, data from commercial real estate firm Bradford Allen shows.

Path and WindWave want 111 Point to feel like a place of respite in the city, with amenities like a Peloton cardio and weight studio and an all-season wellness terrace featuring a sauna and hot tub.

“You can live in the heart of Chicago, but you're in a sanctuary,” said Jack Tse, Path Construction’s director of development. “As a theme, that was important to play on.”

A joint venture between Path and WindWave purchased the upper floors of the former office building for nearly $17 million, Cook County property records show.

With an office conversion, developers are constrained by the building’s floor plates, or width. Wider office buildings can be a struggle to convert because the center of the floors can be too far away from windows and natural light.

At 111 Point, the floor plates were one of the selling points, according to WindWave Managing Partner Jon Cordell. The building dimensions allowed for windows and natural light in each unit, along with massive walk-in closets. Each unit also boasts ceilings at least 10 feet tall, making even the roughly 500-square-foot studios feel spacious.

“I think the trend of new construction is smaller and smaller units,” Cordell said. “When you're inheriting an existing floor plate, you have the luxury of using all of it.”

The developers “didn’t spare any expense” with the units, Cordell said. Each apartment has high-end Kohler fixtures, in-unit laundry and smart thermostats.

“It’s really condo quality,” he said.

The property offers studios, one-bedrooms, including those with dens, and two-bedroom units. Units are on floors five to 10, with some of the larger units on the 10th floor with taller ceilings and direct access to one of the building’s terraces.

Rents range from about $2,300 for a studio up to $4,900 for a two-bedroom.

Cordell said pre-leasing just started and it's “going great,” with a handful of leases already inked.

Ground floor retail tenants Roka Akor and Tarry Coffee are staying in the building, along with the Erikson Institute, a graduate school on floors two to four.

The office portion of the building has largely been vacant since Salesforce departed for its namesake tower on Wolf Point, where it moved in 2023.

The former WeWork turned Industrious coworking space was also a big boon to Path and WindWave. The developers kept much of the infrastructure — like enclosed conference and phone rooms — for its own coworking lounge, a now highly sought-after amenity in many apartment buildings. The coworking lounge will include private rooms, open seating and a podcasting studio, when complete.

The partners are also leaning into wellness with a slew of amenities on the 10th floor, such as a fitness room that includes a yoga studio. Residents also get a free Peloton membership, Cordell said.

Construction on the amenities, including a tenant lounge, is still underway. The building already had two terraces, according to the development team, and the only work on them is adding fixtures like the hot tub and sauna, plus grills and outdoor seating at the terrace off the tenant lounge.

The conversion comes at a time when Chicago is struggling to fill its vacant office space, especially at older properties that lack trendy amenities. The former Salesforce tower was built in 2008, making it a relatively new addition to River North, but it lacked the high-end amenities that could draw in companies.

Research from Bradford Allen found a 20% drop in direct leasing during first quarter 2026, compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. Chicago’s central business district had a 24.8% vacancy rate in the first three months of 2026 — more than a percentage point higher than the same time last year.

Though the Central Loop saw more than 250,00 square feet of negative net absorption, River North saw gains. River North made up 13% of leasing activity in the first quarter and has a direct vacancy rate of 24.4%, just below the central business district’s average, according to Bradford Allen.

Because of those lagging numbers, Chicago is seeing a steady pipeline of office-to-residential conversions. As of late 2025, the city has the third-largest office-to-residential conversion pipeline in the U.S., according to RentCafe.

Though some of the first post-pandemic conversions were supported by city dollars, under the La Salle Corridor Revitalization initiative, projects that are privately funded are starting to pick up — including 111 Point, the first major conversion project to start leasing in River North, according to Cordell.

“True development is being creative. You’ve got to take stock of what's available, or maybe underutilized, and really be creative in solving an issue,” Tse said. “The issue is underutilized office space and the need for downtown living.”

This story has been updated with the project's cost.