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Originally Posted by nomarandlee
For me it is truly not about the tower itself. It is about the case of incompetent by both Bally's and the city for not realizing that such blueprints would be thoroughly unworkable in the first place.
Also, the new tier complex on the roof looks extremely awkward and buffonish. Maybe, in actuality, it won't be so bad, but from the renders, it looks like a cartoonish mismatch with the original building mass.
As Ardecila alluded to, the whole car drop-off area looks like it is a disaster that serves as a moat and anti-urban to the extreme. Unless the landscaping is somehow far more integrated with Chicago Ave. than it seems to look in the renders, it will look like an awkward fortress behind a wall of greenery. Then, once you are in the traffic circle, you will be met with what looks like a cacophony of bad and unrefined signage (yes, I know it is a casino, but I still hope they could do better).
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Again, I’m pretty sure whatever agreement Bally’s and the city established was not centered around the hotel, nor the blueprint and renders showing the hotel were ever designed to be final. It will be normal for Bally’s to have presented certain conditions where they can build a hotel which can be preconditioned to having a certain amount of cashflow, demand, etc. If you think this throughly, if the casino is indeed successful, Bally’s will be the main interested party in building a big hotel anyway.
I’m not really trying to justify Bally’s, however, I do want to provide some context since we tend to extrapolate our idealistic pie-in the-sky thinking to other entities such as the city. The important things from a city perspective are the following:
1. Will the casino create an important revenue for the city considering the taxes obtained from gambling?
2. Will the casino bring investment to the city from the construction and operation that will create jobs for people?
3. Will the casino be successful in establishing themselves as another spot that will consolidate the nightlife and entertainment market in the city?
4. Will the project bring some development to an area that has the potential to expand the entertainment industry from Chicago outside of the River North & Loop neighborhoods?
5. Will the project be accompanied by investment in public spaces, transit and mixed used areas to achieve certain degree of sustainability?
6. Will the project be accepted and integrated by people living within the area? If not, what mitigation actions can be done to get a compromise from neighbors?
I think those are the major questions the city needs to ask. Aesthetics like the suburban feel of the main casino building or the motor lobby crappy design, or the lack of a 500 ft hotel, those are stuff that the city does not have as a priority. It’s ok to criticize the project from a forumer perspective, another thing is to come to a conclusion the project is not meeting the city needs and demanding a license revokal.
What really matters to me is for Chicago to keep getting some investments consolidated and continue expanding the attractions of the city.
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Then it can be said to be preserving heritage with the design.
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