Looking at the New Apartments at the Old Ebony & Jet Building on Michigan Avenue

The Crusader checks-in on the new apartment building that took over the historic Ebony and Jet building at 820 S. Michigan:

The avant garde-designed test kitchen on the tenth floor is gone. Now, on all 11 floors are many, many kitchens, complete with brand-name, stainless steel refrigerators and ovens. And the front yard is still Grant Park.

Johnson Publishing Company may be gone, but its former headquarters in the South Loop lives on.

Vacant for nearly a decade, the historic landmark is humming again with a new purpose after a soft opening earlier this year. Reincarnated as a luxury apartment building, the house that John H. Johnson built to produce Ebony and Jet magazines is now called 820 South Michigan Avenue. It’s the address of a building that made history when Johnson was the first and only Black man to build his empire on Michigan Avenue.

So how much does it cost:

The monthly rent for a studio apartment at 820 South Michigan ranges from $1,499 to $1,575 depending on the size. For a one-bedroom apartment that is 494 square feet, residents pay $1,735, according to the website. The monthly rent for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment ranges from $2,395 to $2,495, for units as small as 692 square feet to as big as 795.

The neighborhood is flush with apartment units and the competition seems to only be increasing.  While the rooms look nice and modern, they also look sort of cramped by the pictures.  Some likely have unobstructed beautiful views of Grant Park and Lake Michigan, but is that enough to beat the competition? 

Maybe - we'll see.