Inside the front door of 212 E. Ontario St. there is a large new mosaic by the artist Amy Exton. Below it, during demolition, crews uncovered the house's original entryway mosaic, along with a fireplace and mantel sealed behind a wall, and newspapers tucked into the structure decades ago. Some of the original pieces were too damaged to restore. The owner kept what she could salvage, planning to put it on display.
The building had been empty for 20 years. It opened to the public on Sept. 3.
One block south, at 230 E. Ohio St., a seven-story office building is being turned into apartments. The plan for that building said its ground-floor restaurant would stay. The restaurant closed in August.
Most of Streeterville's 2026 change happened on the side streets between Michigan Avenue and the lake, inside buildings that were already standing. Ontario and Ohio show how it works. The buildings get a second life, and the businesses already in them aren't guaranteed a place in it.
Twenty empty years at 212 E. Ontario
The house went up in 1885, after the Great Chicago Fire. The Chicago firm Burling & Whitehouse designed it on land that once belonged to the estate of William B. Ogden, the city's first mayor. It is 13,000 square feet in the Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles. Edward J. Burling, whose firm drew it, also worked on the Driehaus Museum and St. James Cathedral. George Peter Alexander Healy, the 19th-century portrait painter whose "The Peacemakers" has hung in the White House, lived there in the last years of his life.
It is now the first physical store for Local Eclectic, the Chicago jewelry brand Alexis Nido-Russo founded in 2013. She built it online before ever opening a shop. She didn't set out to own a mansion. According to Block Club Chicago's account, she spent about two years looking for a West Loop storefront and lost two rental spaces along the way. With rents of $90 to $100 a square foot plus build-out costs, she decided buying would cost less than leasing. She told Block Club how she found the house:
"So I Googled 'commercial real estate for sale in Chicago,' and this was the first place I saw, and I was like, 'Oh my God, this place is insane. I have to go. I have to go look at it.'"
Her first offer lost to a restaurant group, which Block Club did not name. When that deal fell through, she bid again. She closed in May 2024 for $3.3 million, according to the Cook County Assessor's office as cited by Block Club, and then spent two and a half years gutting and renovating a landmarked building.
The house came back because a buyer ran the numbers on downtown retail rent and found an owned building made more sense. It would likely have stayed empty longer if one of those leases had gone through.
What the first floor holds now
There are three shopping rooms on the ground floor. The first is painted burgundy, with jewelry on the walls and a custom stone display case. The back showroom is light pink, under a vintage Murano glass chandelier Nido-Russo found in Paris. To the side is a green velvet room where the lower half of a ballerina sculpture turns slowly overhead, like the inside of a jewelry box. What Now Chicago's opening announcement credits that figure to the artist Veronica Shaeffer.
The house's own history is on the walls too. Nido-Russo found and restored one of Healy's paintings, "Girl With Blue Bonnet," and commissioned the Chicago artist Sebastian Johnson to paint a modern response to it. The two hang facing each other.
The cafe is the part neighbors will probably use most. What Now Chicago reported that coffee and pastries were available from opening day, with the full Local Eclectic Cafe menu coming later. The plans:
- A custom coffee blend from Metric, the Chicago roaster, plus housemade milk alternatives
- Wine, cocktails, a short list of pastries, and small plates like charcuterie, tinned fish and caviar
- No laptops, by design, so the room works as a place to meet rather than a place to work
- Outdoor seating planned for next year
- A full-room mural by the French artist Philippine de Richemont
The two published reports give different store hours, so check Local Eclectic's own channels before you walk over. The company's offices are in the building as well.
One block south, a plan that said the tenants would stay
On Oct. 22, 2025, Associated Bank announced a $21.14 million construction loan to Wildwood Investments and Concord Capital. The loan pays to convert 230 E. Ohio, a 93,707-square-foot retail and office building, into 72 apartments: studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms averaging 811 square feet. Urbanize Chicago identifies the building as the Pelouze Building. In November 2025 it reported that an interior renovation permit had been issued, clearing the residential build-out to start.
The bank's announcement named the ground-floor tenants: Dao Thai Restaurant & Noodle Palace, Eye Society and YA Skin Studio. It said all three would stay open "both throughout and following construction." It gave December 2026 as the expected completion date.
Dao Thai served its last meals in August. What Now Chicago reported that the closure was announced Aug. 24 with a notice on the door, after 37 years on Ohio Street. The notice gave no reason. It read, in part, "We are deeply grateful to our loyal customers, friends, and community for your support and for the many memories we have shared."
That notice is all the public record holds. No replacement has been announced for the space. The sister restaurant, Tiparos Thai Cuisine & Sushi Bar at 1540 N. Clark St., is still open.
Thirty-seven years means Dao Thai opened on that corner around 1989. It outlasted the building's office use. Within a year of a financing plan that promised it a spot on the other side of construction, it closed anyway.
Why the side streets keep changing this way
Michigan Avenue gets the headlines and Navy Pier gets the crowds. The blocks between them are made of the oldest material downtown, and in 2026 that material is being reused. One building had been empty long enough that only an owner-occupant with a specific vision would take on the landmark work. The other is an office and retail building whose owners lined up $21.14 million to turn its upper floors into homes.
Both projects are about keeping what's there. Neither building was torn down. The mansion kept its masonry and recovered parts of its 1885 entry. The Pelouze Building keeps its seven stories and gets facade repairs and a rooftop deck as part of the conversion.
At 212 E. Ontario the building had nobody left to lose. At 230 E. Ohio the plan named the tenants and said they would stay, and the longest-running one still went dark before the apartments were finished. When a familiar ground-floor spot in an older Streeterville building goes quiet, the more useful question is what the floors above it are turning into.
The calendar around these blocks, from now through New Year's
The holiday stretch starts this weekend, and the Pelouze Building's target completion lands in the middle of it. Here is what is on the schedule near Ontario and Ohio, in order:
- Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, Navy Pier. Slightly Spooky Saturdays finish their run on these two dates, noon to 6 p.m. The program includes Slightly Spooky Movies at the Pier in Polk Bros Park, with a family-friendly film at 5:30 p.m. and a second film for older audiences at 8 p.m.
- Now through Dec. 12, Chicago Shakespeare Theater. "The Winter's Tale" opened Oct. 13.
- Nov. 11 through Jan. 3, Chicago Shakespeare Theater. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" begins its run.
- Saturday, Nov. 21, Michigan Avenue. The Wintrust Magnificent Mile Lights Festival runs Lights Festival Lane from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The parade steps off at 5:30 p.m. at Oak Street and Michigan Avenue and heads south, and fireworks go up over the Chicago River at 7:30 p.m.
- Nov. 27 through Jan. 3, Festival Hall. Wintrust Winter WonderFest returns with ice skating included. It is closed to the general public Nov. 30 through Dec. 2 for pre-booked groups.
On Superior Street, The Peninsula Chicago has announced Comunità for early 2027. It is an Italian dinner concept that will take over the hotel's fifth-floor Lobby dining room at night. The Peninsula's own Comunità page says the room stays The Lobby by day, serving breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. Chicago Food Magazine reports that Chef de Cuisine Santo Santonocito is leading it, with communal large-format dishes and handmade pasta drawn from Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. It is one more case of a downtown address doing something new inside space it already has.
For more on how these blocks fit the rest of the neighborhood, our Streeterville guide covers the area from the river to Oak Street.
If you own on Ontario, Ohio or any of the side streets around them, your block is changing one building at a time. You'll want an agent who knows which buildings are turning over and why. Matt Laricy and the LARICY Team sell downtown Chicago every week. Call us for a straight read on what these conversions mean for your building. List with Laricy: sell faster, reach more buyers.
