Developers drove the first steel piles Friday for a 26-story apartment tower planned to rise in Chinatown along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

The tower, by Forest City Enterprises Inc. and Hudson Group North America, will include 240 apartments and a 4,000-square-foot restaurant that will spill onto the Greenway at the corner of Essex Street and Surface Road. The yet-to-be-named restaurant will have a large outdoor patio.

It is one of several residential towers rising around Chinatown and Downtown Crossing, where about 900 apartments and condominiums are now under construction.

The $130 million building, to feature a mix of glass, granite and concrete, was designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects and will be built by Suffolk Construction Co. The building will contain a mix of unit sizes, from studios to three bedrooms, as well as a fifth-floor lounge and fitness center. The project also includes the construction of 48 affordable housing units at the nearby Oxford Ping On building.

The 26-story tower is expected to be completed by summer 2014.