CHICAGO | 435 N Park | 569 ft | 49 FLOORS | COM
 

Surprised this one hasn't gotten any attention yet (It's on the site of the canceled Waldorf Astoria, sadly it's not that tower, but it's at least something.)

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/5468/4651e.jpg

It's been discussed in the Chicago compilations thread but hadn't had a thread created for it until you came along. :)

I think it's threadworthy. Love the tower, still hate the base

It's definitely thread worthy. First new project in a while that almost breaks the old 700' automatic thread trigger.

Decent tower, crappy base. I like the black mullions and trim a lot though.

Also, can a mod add the Chicago cool face to the thread title? Makes it way easier to lurk the Chicago threads.

Yea I agree for sure, they should just add the base to the tower and make it an 800 footer :cool:

It is actually only 625' (not that 625' in this economy is worthy of being preceded by "only")-- not that close to 700'. That is corroborated on the Soar Website, though they still have the old picture -- the tower has been much improved. For historical reference, I'll just post it here:

http://i.imgur.com/p9jBr.jpg

I think that the glass facing west is really nice (we'll have to see what the rest of the precast ends up looking like). Everything else is a little dungeon-like to the pedestrian.

^Oh well @ the height loss but at least the building is better looking (maybe)

It occurs to me that the statistics on the SOAR site could be outdated with the picture.
Chicago Architecture Blog says 670'. The pot is from after the cosmetic changes, so I'll go with that number. Sorry for the confusion and my incompetence....

There are a couple big pieces of program held in the base, notably a fairly massive grand ballroom which occupies the Northern section [which is height restricted anyways because of the protected view corridor from the Odgen slip to Tribune Tower] that would be hard to economically infuse into the tower itself.

Its not perfect, not its not the worst thing I have ever seen either.


*Since everyone is discussing the height, does anyone know where the 625' (670' w/mechanical) number is being measured from? It could be off a solid 20' if measured from upper Water.

fine by me... if your incompetence means getting a 200+ meter building than I'm all for it ;)

I don't think my incompetence is to blame. But let's try this:

I hear that Wolf Point will definitely not be a super-tall, privately financed by the Kennedy's and Hines and designed by a starchitect (definitely not Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid)...

Now we wait for this to be another slip-up.

Community Meeting on 435-463 North Park Drive on Thursday, March 22

A community meeting will be held on Thursday, March 22 to discuss the development proposed for 435-456 North Park Drive. Sponsored by SOAR and Alderman Reilly's office, this meeting is an opportunity for residents to provide input to the developer, ask questions, etc.

The meeting will take place at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center, 450 N. Cityfront Plaza, in room 621 and will begin promptly at 5:30 PM. RSVPs for this meeting are not necessary.

^^Damn I wish I lived in Chi town...

To begin with I don't understand how we are getting way over 600 feet from a 54 story residential/hotel building. Is the secret sauce in the lobby and amenity floors + mech penthouse + measuring from New Street?

To clear up the height questions, here is an elevation from The Chicago Architecture Blog:

http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info...streeterville/

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...dragged-11.jpg

So it is 670 feet, cool

This is a sharp looking tower. So is it 670' or is that an overestimation?

Another re-iteration of MiMA in NYC, which turned out heinous... tombstones sprouting everywhere!

More info on the height of this building. From tonight's SOAR meeting, a new elevation with a new, slightly lower, max height of 635' to the top of the mechanical screen walls.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K...25287%2529.JPG

Other interesting info from the SOAR meeting:

-They expect to begin soil remediation on the site this June, although when the developer gave this answer the architect seemed surprised it would be so early (for whatever that is worth).
-They expect foundation work to begin at the end of 2012. The project is scheduled to open in the summer of 2015.

-The do not have a contract with the expected hotel brand, however they did say that they were very close. The developer said that he had hoped the deal would have been done before this meeting so he could have disclosed the hotel brand. He did give some clues about who the hotel brand might be. He said:
-The hotel portion of the building would be purchased by the hotel brand, not leased or run by the developer.
-The hotel would be 4 diamond (4-star?).
-The hotel brand is a publicly traded company and that hotels are are small percentage of their total business.
-The hotel brand currently only has about (from memory) 7-8 hotels in the US and another 4-5 internationally.

-The city and the project have a desire to renovate Ogden Plaza (the clock park west of the site), but they have hit a snag with the owner of the parking lot below the park.

-Kinda off the topic of this building, but there were several questions from residents about the parcel of land that is just north of this site. Mostly they said that they have no knowledge of the plans for that site, however at one point Alderman Reilly jumped in and said that he has seen no plans come across his desk for the development of that parcel. There were some other clues about what they know however. When asked about what land 435 N Park might use for it's laydown area for the duration of the project, the developer said that they have a relationship with the owner of the parcel to the north and barring them starting their own development soon, they would use that land for laydown. Also, the Architect stressed that they have designed a fully exposed facade on the North side in the event that a building is not built to the North for a while. Finally, the landscape architect said they have provision in their plans for additional trees and landscaping on the North side of 435 in the event that the development of the site to the North does not happen for while (although he did say it would be scrapped if that site moved forward).

This was my first community meeting on a new project and overall I thought it was pretty interesting, although most of the info we have already seen in the released sketches. I was hoping for a more heated debate, but overall everyone was pretty civil.

P.S. One more, sorta off topic tidbit was from an answer by the Alderman about any traffic studies on the recently dangerous intersection of Illinois and Columbus. He said they have a study and mentioned that one of the options is to lower the speed limit on Columbus in that area. Another option was to narrow Columbus to naturally reduce speeds.

Well, Fairbanks is being widened between Erie and Ontario. My suspicion is that CDOT wants to eventually turn Fairbanks into a 4-lane street all the way up to Chicago. I don't know if this is an active plan, or just some artifact buried in some arcane old Streeterville planning document.

I'd actually be fine with that, if they matched it with a corresponding road diet between Grand and the river, and stoplights at every block.

So do I, living 65 miles away and being able to visit frequently doesn't cut it.

Racine is so goddamn boring.

Getting back on topic, this is great to hear that they are about to sign a hotel operator and start construction this year!

I don't get it, what's up with Streeterville being such a hotbed of construction these days? People want to live/be there so badly these days, but I don't get the attraction. Most of the action (restaurants, shops, nightlife, mass transit) is west of Michigan Avenue, whereas Streeterville still seems like of sleepy, in a skyscraper canyon sort of way.

Being on the other side of Michigan Avenue can do wonders for traffic and access to the lake. Also, the bars and restaurants on the west side of Michigan avenue are a short walk away, as is the CBD. Some people don't want to live right above the bar or restaurant they are want to frequent.

I do agree though, that the neighborhood could use some more street level charm...

Some info on this from Curbed. It looks like they are really going through with this and hope to begin decontamination in June and have it u/c by Fall. I'll be happy if that happens, but we'll see.

Also, the height appears to only be 590' (sad face), meaning it has shrunk monumentally (almost 100').

See my picture a few post back. It only shrunk 35', which while still disappointing, not as bad...

Just realized today that all parking for this structure is underground. It's kind of a waste with that massive and oppressive stone podium. But there are only 230 parking spaces for about 400 apartments and 400 hotel rooms.

From the Curbed article I cited earlier.

The parking situation was brought up at the meeting as well. I guess most of the 240 parking spaces will be for the apartments while the hotel will use a valet system, story the cars at one of the many under street surface lots in the area. The developer said that the under street parking in that area is pretty under utilized (something like 30 or 40%, although I don't know when they measure that utilization).

I actually think the podium is not very oppressive. The North end is only as high as is allowed by the view corridor. They said at the meeting that is was about 30' high, but it looks much high in the rendering. Maybe it is 30' at the highest point of the street as it slopes up. If there were not the height restriction, plus more parking crammed in, the podium could have been 8 or 9 stories tall like other SCB projects, and then would have been more oppressive in my opinion. On the south side will be a public restaurant with roof top dining. They said they aim to make it more of a neighborhood restaurant and less of a hotel restaurant. That is good in theory at least. Plus both of the sides of podium have nice expanses of glass on their Park Street side, which is much different that the Sheraton next door which is pretty much a fortress from the North Water Street side.

Granted that the New Street side is pretty much a shear wall of stone and glass, but that street is kind of a lost cause.

Not sure on my opinion of this one yet.

Upcoming SOAR Meeting
 

FYI, some of you may be interested that there will be another SOAR meeting next week (Tuesday May 8) to see the "Revised" 435 N Park Drive development. The letter from Alderman Reilly is below.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-K...N%2520Park.PNG

I'm surprised nobody updated this thread with the results of the meeting with SOAR.

As posted in Curbed, FINANCING IS IN PLACE! :banana:

Streeterville is on fire, baby

Hydrogen, besides the picture at Curbed, did you get any other updated renderings? Also, one unanswered question: are they planning any upgrades to that clock plaza across the street?

..and that they expect to start excavation this June! ...and it still has an awesome 798:230 unit to parking ratio!!!

Yeah, will this be Chicago first 200m building since Legacy ? :banana:

My problem with this development is that with this and the Sheraton next door, this little corner will remain pedestrian unfriendly. It's mostly just hotels and taxicabs shuttling people to other areas.

It would nice to see some street level retail pop up. Instead, you have 2 hotels next to eachother that have sequestered entrances from the sidewalk, rather Las Vegas style

The corner of Park and North Water will have a restaurant that will hold the corner.

Getting the architects to modify the design might be a stretch, but the city/Reilly could push for a sidewalk cafe at the corner. It could take over the parking lane.

http://www.architizer.com/blog/wp-co...-1-600x369.jpg

No additional renderings were provided.

As for Ogden Plaza, if my memory serves me correctly, Reilly mentioned that it's involved in litigation, so immediate improvements aren't possible. But they eventually plan on addressing it, particularly because it's right across from the entrance to the hotel.

So very shortly, Chicago will have not only a new construction start, but probably its tallest construction start in quite a while

One thing I admire about Leahy (the architect from SCB) is that he's a Jane Jacobs-dedicatee. He understands the importance of having people occupy the street, whether it be employees of the hotel on New Street or hotel guests on Park Drive. He has repeatedly alluded to the need for foot traffic around the building as a means of encouraging safety.

It never ceases to amaze me how some developments just "work" while other great projects languish. We only heard about this a few months ago and its already got financing and a plan for construction to start. The developers must be really good at their job.

this is all about location. great spot.

hard to believe there isn't something there already.
Could use nice restaurant space.

I will shortly be able to see this and optima both from work

Well, we dodged a bullet on this site in the past. It was supposed to be an Adam's Mark Hotel, which I'm told was going to be a really fugley POS.

I spoke with developer after the meeting and he is still looking to make some more changes to the design including the possible use of a stone veneer on the base. He would also like to go taller, but the economics just aren't there at the moment.

Interesting. So he might add some height at the end of construction ?

I vaguely remember that and just threw up a little in my mouth when you mentioned it.

Especially now that Illinois and Grand are so much more built up in Streeterville compared to fifteen years ago, a design standard has kind of emerged in the public's mind so that it's a bit less probable someone will design total crap for a new tower. The good is crowding out the bad, hope it continues.

It sounds like more height was desired by the developer, but economically it doesn't work. A building cannot have a vertical expansion after it is built without being engineered for it during the original construction (a la Blus Cross Blue Shield)... I doubt the developer will do that though. While the site is in a great location, I doubt land will be valuable enough anytime in the near future that he can justify the extra upfront cost to pay for the added engineering to make a vertical expansion feasible. Think of all the empty lots to be developed first... While he doesn't have control of any of those other lots (to my knowledge) the cost to a developer of building a 20 story building more inexpensively than he can build an extra 20 stories onto this will make other buildings cheaper and more profitable to investors in my opinion.

The Chicago Architecture Blog has a piece on 435 N Park. Apart from some errors (like an outdated picture of the building) and some points upon which I disagree (like classifying SOAR as a NIMBY group and calling it SORE - Seniors overlords of real estate - with the blogger's perennial sass), it had some interesting statements.

On Streeterville coming to terms with having towers built:

and

On the designs coming from SCB:

On our criticisms of these towers:

Also, more proof from Crain's that we are seeing a rental bubble right now. We'll see if developers are restrained or we will see a crash in 2013...

Rentals don't bubble to the same extent that condos do. I wouldn't worry about it. Plus, an apartment bubble only hurts big players and actually helps the average person, unlike a condo or SFH bubble, which hurts a broad spectrum of people. This economy has a lot of things to worry about, but an apartment bubble isn't one of them. Lower rent may stave off the day when condo prices increase rapidly again, but having more people downtown makes it more vibrant, which makes it more attractive, which still helps it overall.

^ well said

I believe rents could bubble, as the 90's in Chicago's commercial business spaces did. Though, as emathias said, low rents "help" the majority of people, it still hurts real estate investment (especially the condo market) as we would see little to no new construction as an overbuilt inventory is absorbed. It doesn't seem like we will see anything beyond stabilized rental prices, but it could easily become a bubble if investors get overzealous. I was probably being a bit hyperbolic in my last post. Also, I just realized how offpost my last post got. sorry. Lets try to continue this over in the Gen. Dev. thread if anyone wants to.

Neighbors Want TALLER Skyscrapers In Streeterville

http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info...5/435npark.jpg
435 N. Park Dr. C.A.I.

Only in Chicago do you have YIMBYS :D

Perfect city for America's next tallest I say :yes:

Let's hope this thing breaks 800'

Haha true, if the developer manages to get extra funding the height of this will definitely rise, but that's a big "if"

For now though, we should be happy that we will have 2 200m buildings under construction at the end of this year. Chicago needs some buildings in the 600-700 foot range anyways.