Chicago Magazine - Chicago Tribune publication

In Hot Water

Innovative heating system should help Skokie Gardens live up to its name

     The building is called Skokie Gardens, and if the newfangled heating system works as expected, the condos will feel as comfortable as greenhouses in the dead of winter.

     For his first large project, the developer Abdul Matin, president of the Fortune Group, opted to go with an innovative Giggens heating system that in winter will circulate hot water through the building’s walls and floors, establishing a standard temperature throughout the structure. “But you also have individual controls on blowers in your unit so you get the temperature you want,” Matin says. Skokie Gardens is a six-story building nearing completion at the intersection of Niles Center Road and Dempster Street, part of the revitalization of the neighborhood around the Skokie Swift CTA station three blocks to the west. Matin says 47 of the building’s 70 condos had sold by May. Prices for the remaining units run from $364,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,400 square feet of space, to $495,800 for a three-bedroom, two-bath unit with 1,900 square feet.