When building a high-rise apartment complex, it helps to envision the future occupants of the building and their desires. It’s even better if the developer is a future occupant.

That’s what Curt Bailey, president of Related Midwest, learned from his time living in his own buildings. As the developer of ultra-luxury Downtown high-rises geared towards young people, Bailey said his experience living at some of his buildings helped him learn how the spaces were truly put to use – and how the next project can be even better.

“I had not lived in a high rise before and it just struck me one day as inane that I was driving this process and not understanding how it worked,” Bailey said at the the Marcus & Millichap/IPA Multifamily Forum in early April. “I think you find things, and it may not be how to go up and down an elevator, but you see things in your building when you really live there that you never see when you just visit them.”

Bailey has spent time living at OneEleven, a 60-story apartment tower at 111 W. Wacker Dr., and at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive, both projects developed by Related Midwest. While his experience living in his completed buildings doesn’t result in large changes to those developments, it does influence the next project, he said.

“We always find something, where we say, “Oh, we should have done that,’” Bailey said. “You get that a little bit more when you’re in the building. You see where these people spend their time, where people are not spending time and you think, ‘Oh, we just wasted half a million dollars on that room that nobody’s using.’ So hopefully you don’t do that next time.”

Lessons to be learned

Bailey, who usually resides with his family in their Lakeview home, mentioned one example of a building amenity that he noticed was not being utilized as the team had imagined.

“At 500 (North Lake Shore Drive), we have this kind of movie room that, if I could go back, I’d make the gym bigger,” Bailey said. “We have a ceiling there, where you turn off the lights so you get the whole stars and everything. It’s like a 50,000 dollar ceiling. But if we chose to make that a workout room we’re going to eat that [cost]. But you learn those things. Next time, you look and say ‘Ok, what are people going to use?’”

And Bailey has learned what his buyers like. Through his use of the work-out rooms at both 500 Lake Shore Drive and One Eleven, the developer said he noticed what equipment and gym amenities were most popular with residents. Bailey also said he was able to see how people use common spaces in his buildings, and he noted that the spaces were popular but that people preferred seating that gave them some personal space.

The whole idea of the exercise is to put the builders into the shoes of the people who will inhabit the space, even if the developer moving in to one of their projects is unfeasible, Bailey said.

“When we look at like a 1035 (West Van Buren, a West Loop high-rise project that will target young people studying or working in the Medical District), we spent a lot of time looking ahead and saying, what would you use?” he said. “The younger people in the office, how would they live, how would they use this public space? You got to look at who your demographic is going to be.”