At a ceremonial groundbreaking today for the 93-story Vista Tower, officials of the U.S. and China partners on the project emphasized it as a landmark investment by a Chinese firm in Chicago.

 

The building "is a $1 billion vote of confidence in the future of Chicago," said Chen Guocai, vice president of Wanda Commercial Properties, the Chinese firm working with Chicago-based Magellan Development Group on the planned hotel and condominium tower.

 

The Vista, planned for a site on Wacker Drive in the Lakeshore East neighborhood, will be "the biggest ever real estate investment by a Chinese company in Chicago, as well as in the U.S.," said Chen Xu, chairman of the China General Chamber of Commerce USA.

 

Wanda, which owns 300 million square feet of real estate worldwide, including 96 five-star hotels, according to Chen Guocai, considered building its first U.S. property in other cities but settled on Chicago because "it is perhaps under-represented in terms of international and Chinese investment."

 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that two years ago, he was aware New York and Los Angeles had been in the running for Wanda's first American investment.

 

"I'm proud to say these 2,000 construction jobs will be in neither New York nor Los Angeles, but here in the city of Chicago," Emanuel said at the event, which was held on a neighboring plaza about four stories above the Vista Tower site, where surface work has already begun.

 

Once construction is complete, the building's roughly 200 hotel rooms and 400 condos will support hundreds of permanent jobs, said Ald. Brendan Reilly, in whose 42nd Ward the tower will stand. In Chicago, Reilly said, "we get excited about 200 headquarters jobs coming to town," Reilly said. "This will be 500."

 

In the past 15 years, Chinese firms have invested about $13 billion in the Midwest, according to Hong Lei, China's consul general in Chicago. That has created 30,000 jobs, he said. "We hope there will be more buildings coming up to add to the beauty of your skyline," he said.

 

Among about 80 people at today's event were some buyers of condominiums in the tower, said David Carlins, Magellan's president, although he and other company representatives would not identify them for a reporter.

 

n May, Carlins told Crain's buyers had already put contracts on about 80 condos, or 20 percent. He said some of the project's financing might come through the EB-5 program, which allows non-U.S. citizens to receive residency here if they invest in qualified projects. Today he declined to discuss details of the building's financing.

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