Upon completion, The St. Regis Chicago became Chicago’s third tallest building and the tallest building within the mixed-use Lake Shore East development located near the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Proximity to the river and the city’s renown lakefront park system, as well as placement upon a north-south view corridor within the city’s street grid, provides for a high level of prominence for the mixed-use building. The reinforced concrete structure is composed of a series of stacked frustrum-shaped volumes moving rhythmically in and out of plane and extruded vertically into four sections extending to various heights.

The flowing form of The St. Regis Chicago’s volume is further accentuated through the façade’s gradient of colored glass, which combined with the spandrel covered floor slab edges, creates an enhanced visual texture for the exterior. As the building is set into an artificial grade change introduced by the adjacent three-level street system, public entrances are located at different elevations. The lowest level entrance along Field Boulevard provides the easternmost entrance for the city’s indoor pedestrian circulation network known as ‘The Pedway’, while the main entrances are located along the uppermost level of Wacker Drive, where two dedicated lobbies serve as the entries for the hotel and residential condominium components of the building. Between these lobbies, a public roadway passes through the structure, creating a pedestrian and vehicular link between Wacker Drive, the riverfront and the rest of the Lake Shore East development.