“...scrappy, independent...”
“...beautifully illustrated...”
“...a sophisticated news section...”
“...an absolutely splendid website...”

Marina City Online is a news and information web site focused on the 1,400-resident community of Marina City and the River North and North Loop neighborhoods of downtown Chicago. In 2009, Marina City Online was visited 54,550 times by 32,331 different people. The average visitor invested 3 minutes 33 seconds on the site, viewing 3.47 pages. The most popular pages are... 1. Marina City News 2. MLS Listings 3. Rentals 4. Home page 5. Pictorials 6. History (contents) 7. Floor plates & maps 8. Opinion 9. History (cover) 10. Commercial Directory  See the Google Analytics 2009 Dashboard Report for www.marinacityonline.com (Adobe Acrobat Document).

210 news articles – an average of one new story every one and a half days – were published in 2009, each based on interviews directly with newsmakers. Our section on the history of Marina City contains more than 72,000 words and the site has more than 1,800 images and videos. Since October 2007, more than 400 news stories have been published. Popular subjects include Marina City residents and commercial tenants, condominium issues, the history of Marina City, the neighborhood, and Marina City in the spotlight – which happens often. MLS listings and photos are updated daily from raw data obtained from Midwest Real Estate Data LLC. An email version is sent every weekday morning to subscribers of this free service. Every afternoon, a summary of headlines and closing stock prices of particular interest to the north side of the Loop is created and emailed at no charge to subscribers.

At least once a week, an update is emailed to a large list of local and national news media people, residents and former residents, tenants, neighbors, architects, lawyers, scholars, city officials, real estate professionals, newsmakers, and numerous other people with a connection or interest in Marina City.

We have editorials and guest opinions, a directory of commercial tenants, information for residents, and links to neighborhood attractions.

Marina City Online was founded on September 17, 2005, by Steven Dahlman, a writer, photographer, and software developer who lives at Marina City. He has 30 years of experience as a professional journalist. He has written extensively about Marina City and is currently working on a book about its history.

Michael Michalak, a real estate broker, is responsible for the site’s resources for condo buyers, sellers, and renters, and is the site’s only real estate related sponsor. Other treasured contributors include photographer Mike Chunko and columnist Pasha Holiday.

MCO has been written about by Archinect, ArchitectureChicago PLUS, Chicago Carless, Chicago Journal, ChicagoNow, Chicago Tribune, Chicagoist, FARK.com, Gapers Block, NBC Chicago, NewCityChicago.com, The Windy Citizen, Time Out Chicago, United Press International, Wikipedia, and YoChicago.

The web site resides on a dedicated Linux server. Original programming was developed to perform useful tasks, like display and manage MLS listings, recent transfers, news headlines and links, stock quotes, neighborhood information, display news widgets, signup readers for email alerts, create and send news summaries, manage CPD crime data, and interact with Facebook and Twitter.