Essex on the Park
apartment building in Chicago
Sentral Michigan Avenue or 808 South Michigan (Avenue) is a 479-unit apartment building on South Michigan Avenue in the Loop community area, Chicago, Illinois. It is connected to Le Méridien Essex Chicago at 800 South Michigan Avenue.
The development was marketed and opened as Essex on the Park on March 1, 2019, but rebranded as Sentral (stylized as Sen+ral) Michigan Avenue in July 2021.
History
In November 2014, Oxford Capital Group LLC acquired the 254-room Essex Inn at 800 South Michigan, along the Historic Michigan Boulevard District across from Grant Park, from the Gecht family who built the hotel in 1961. Oxford acquired the property, which sits atop a ground lease that runs until 2057, for $25.5 million. By September 2015, Oxford submitted plans to replace the parking garage and swimming pool next to the Essex Inn with a 48-story apartment tower hosting 388 units. The plan was modified during 2016, removing proposed open air bars between the lower and upper levels. On January 3, 2017, Oxford Capital Group received a $170 million construction loan. On January 19, 2017, Oxford broke ground on the new plan, which at the time proposed a 57-story 476-apartments and 290-hotel room development next to the Essex Inn. Preleasing began on December 28, 2018 for the new building, which was considered completed at the time.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Essex on the Park” is apartment building in Chicago. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Essex, Park and apartment, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “apartment building in Chicago” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85759658. Authority coordinates are 41.871, -87.625. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 2021, 2014 and 1961.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Essex on the Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Essex on the Park primary sources, Essex on the Park archive and Essex research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Essex on the Park”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Essex on the Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.