Perhaps these developers are comprised of 100 gentlemen that work in Washington, DC?

If at first you don't succeed, pile in a bunch more crap and hope nobody notices!

:cheers:

...I'm starting to hear some of the details about the Buckingham Fountain re-hab....the city isn't just rebuilding the fountain..apparently, it's going to have a laser show and "dancing water" (like Bellagio)...it's going to be quite a spectacle when it re-opens next May.........

Wait, you're joking, right? This is a joke?

Laser show? Eh?

:previous: You think that's tacky or cool Ch.G, Ch.G? I just hope put more seating near the fountain and would move in the fencing of the perimeter so you don't feel like your so removed from the fountain. Water makes a much better attraction when you feel you can get right near it.

laser show eh? hope it doesn't suck.

if there were two things I'd like to see done at Buckingham is (1) activating the surrounding space so people could enjoy it more. The gravel is simply there to tell visitors to move on, you're not welcome to stay for long and (2) allow people to tough the water, sit around the perimeter of the fountain.

There are sensible solutions to these things.

^ I like the gravel, the way it scatters the light & crunches under foot - it reminds me of the Mall in DC. But the barricades should come down around the fountain's perimeter - does the city think that people are going to break it?

I think a Trib article (or someone here) said that the light show would be coordinated with new lighting along Congress, which could be pretty cool.

^^ Awesome. Can't wait to see it.

Oh come on, most of that debt is long-term bonds used for the reconstruction of the terminal. That's not incompetence, it's perfectly business-oriented unless you think private business never borrows money for infrastructure investment. As far as how well-run it is, I'll take Midway over O'Hare or just about any other US airport.

GreekTown
 

Skinner School - Sept 15
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http://lh6.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1050790.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...050795_6_7.jpg

155 N Aberdeen Web site
Sept 26
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http://lh3.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1070263.JPG

Over engineered ?
http://lh5.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1070266.JPG

Another new lowrise, with a similar strong steel structure.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1070268.JPG

Filling in the Vaulted Sitdwalk along Madison
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A rendering of the west side VA Hospital expansion (which is nearly completed, no?):

http://www.som.com/resources/categor...1_21580512.jpg

Lake Meadows developer commits to affordable units

By Patrick Butler

Residents who fear the controversial Lake Meadows redevelopment plan will force them out of their neighborhood were encouraged to “check out the facts” by Draper and Kramer executives at a recent Near South Rotary Club meeting.

The facts cited by project manager Gordon Ziegenhagen are that developer Draper and Kramer’s plans call for putting in between 1,200 and 1,500 affordable housing units where there currently are none. Ziegenhagen offered this information in response to Jennifer Hunt, a stress management counselor, who predicted most of the current residents would be displaced either because they cannot pay the rent or would fall behind on their property taxes.

“That’s certainly an issue all over Chicago,” Ziegenhagen said. “The City has tried to counter these issues with tax freezes and senior exemptions. We don’t want people priced out of the neighborhood either. Is this going to be a perfect solution? I don’t know. But it’s certainly a concern of ours, and we’ll do anything we can to help.”

Homeowners are “going to benefit from their property values being escalated,” he added. “They can sell for a higher price and relocate.”

Asked by Hunt what Draper and Kramer means by “affordable,” Ziegenhagen said that means “a two-person household earning below $36,180 a year would pay $895 for a two-bedroom apartment, plus utilities, while a four-person household making below $75,000 would pay $240,000 for a three-bedroom condominium.”

Hunt was not the only one to voice misgivings. Many of the 150 people who attended an earlier community meeting in February called the redevelopment everything from “a gentrification plan” to “ethnic cleansing.”

While rents in the area still are considered reasonable, there are no “affordable” units there, compared to the ones Draper are Kramer plans to build, with current residents given first shot at moving into the new buildings, Ziegenhagen and Draper and Kramer Assistant Vice President Shawn Gregiore said.

Over the next 20 years—in what constitutes one of the biggest real estate developments in Chicago history—Draper and Kramer plans to raze all 1,870 apartments on the 70-acre tract between King Drive, 31st and 35th Streets, and South Lake Shore Drive, Ziegenhagen said.

In their place will rise 7,846 new residential units—2,000 rental and 5,845 single family houses and townhouses—along with 500,000 square feet of retail space and seven parks covering 29 acres. Numbers like that would make Lake Meadows the city’s second-largest residential development, just behind the South Loop’s 8,000 unit Central Station project.

The development would be a mix of high-, medium-, and low-rise buildings. Four skyscrapers would line Lake Shore Drive, and a bridge would connect the project to a 15-acre park between the drive and the Metra tracks, Ziegenhagen said.

Retail would include a Jewel supermarket and a Walgreen’s pharmacy, and residential would include townhouses along 35th Street and single-family houses along King Drive.

“Our goal—and it’s really a promise—is not to tear any of the existing residences down until we build new apartments,” Ziegenhagen said. “And while we have no particular senior housing focus now, we hope to have maybe 400 senior housing units, including some affordable senior housing.”

Just as the North Side has its tony Lincoln Park West, Ziegenhagen said, “why shouldn’t we have our own Burnham Park West street? Those majestic graystone buildings, lots of park land, and a lot of retail and residential are very similar to what we’re planning.”

Draper and Kramer will not discuss the project’s cost, but some unofficial estimates put it at at least $1 billion.

Besides preserving the neighborhood’s long-term affordability, the project will produce 9,200 construction jobs and 1,220 permanent retail and building management and maintenance positions and attract still more restaurants and shopping to the area, Ziegenhagen and Gregiore agreed.

The project also would “reconnect” the old Lake Meadows with the rest of the community by opening long-closed streets, Ziegenhagen said.

Lake Meadows—which would connect Bronzeville with Hyde Park, McCormick Place, the Museum Campus, and possibly the Olympic Village in 2016—just happens to be in the right place at the right time, according to Kimbal Goluska, a consultant working with Draper and Kramer. “Lake Meadows is poised to rebound” in a neighborhood “surrounded by things that are exciting and happening,” Goluska said.

Ziegenhagen and other Draper and Kramer executives deny the project has anything to do with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Olympic hopes. Not only was the new Lake Meadows being planned before the City even decided to bid for the games, but only a part of the development would even be completed by 2016, he said.

In the meantime, Ziegenhagen said he plans to talk to just about anyone who wants to discuss the project, “even when their feedback is candid—very candid,” he concluded.

Nation's first, only public housing museum coming to Taylor Street

By Sheila Elliott

The kaleidoscopic image of American public housing will enter a new era as an important part of national history with the advancement of plans for a National Public Housing Museum, which will be located on the Near West Side.

In 2006, the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA’s) Central Advisory Council, the residents’ leadership group, gave the plan its support. On Aug. 13, CHA commissioners agreed to allow museum advocates to renovate a vacant, 70-year-old, three-story housing unit—a fragment of the once sizeable ABLA (Abbott-Brooks-Loomis-Addams) Homes—and turn it into a facility to document, explore, and interpret public housing’s role American life.

http://www.nearwestgazette.com/Archi...8/News1025.jpg

The CHA agreed to turn over the property in 2011 if the museum organizers meet specific criteria, said CHA spokesperson Matthew Aguilar. They must raise $3.2 million by May 2009, another $1.5 million by December 2010, and the rest by December 2011.

“It’s more than a museum,” said Sunny Fischer, executive director of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the proposed museum’s primary backer. There is “tremendous opportunity for interpretation” and to explain this aspect of the American experience, she said.

Rather than a deterrent to creating the museum, presenting the complexities arising from the American public housing experience is the rationale for creating the museum in the first place. Public housing is "a part of the American way of life that may need better explanation and understanding," she said.

Fischer is herself a product of New York City’s public housing projects.

With the site secured, the foundation can move ahead with other tasks in the development process, including fundraising. Fisher said a $17 million campaign is underway; museum organizers envision a phased opening starting in 2012.

U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-7th) hope to obtain $5 million in federal funding.

Local, State, Federal input

Architects have completed renderings for the museum, and organizers have created a 15- member board of directors, advisory and steering committees, and a project team. In the process, the group is tapping the talents of individuals from the business community, the arts, the Chicago and New York museum communities, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the State government, the media, universities, religious organizations, social service agencies, and residents and former residents of CHA housing. Deverra Beverly, longtime ABLA tenants' leader, is the founding chair of the museum.

"I am elated because a lot had thought that we couldn't have this museum," Beverly said. "It will keep the good memories alive."

The National Public Housing Museum will be located at 1322-24 W. Taylor St. at Ada Street, with the hulking, three-story remnant of the ABLA Homes as its nucleus. While workers will renovate and restore the former housing project, those changes will not alter the museum’s goal of presenting life as it was lived in the projects throughout the building's long career with the CHA, said Fischer. Officials plan interpretive and educational facilities along with limited retail and perhaps dining options; they also may include space for academic research.

Today, the site makes a powerful visual statement about the Taylor Street community’s changes over the last decade. Construction crews and homeowners go about their day-to-day lives in the new Roosevelt Square residential area to the east. When completed, the museum will join the area's new housing and thriving businesses.

These contrasting images represent the most recent incarnations of a neighborhood that offers a mother lode of Chicago history. Fischer said that, decades ago, social reformer Jane Addams spoke about the area’s need for public housing; when the first units in the project opened in 1938, they bore her name. The project’s association with famous names continued when the builders called on Chicago’s renowned landscape artist, Jens Jensen, to design lawns and parkways and tapped Edgar Miller to create the “Animal Court,” a charming arrangement of animal sculptures that beckoned children living there to play.

Born in the New Deal

The ABLA Homes were born in the spirit of Depression-era President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, with its belief that providing a temporary housing solution for people when their lives were in crisis was far better than permitting them to be homeless. Pictures from the CHA archives from the project’s earliest years, which are included in Fischer’s research, provide glimpses into the lives of residents and reveal an orderly world of pleasant surroundings where smiling children play in a secure environment.

Profound changes in America were afoot, however. As the 1930s and 1940s passed, Chicago began to face significant the demographic shifts, with thousands of people moving from rural areas to the city. The city’s manufacturing base boomed and then began a painful era of contraction. Unemployment, expensive upkeep and funding problems for housing projects, education woes, and racial division all played a part in the post-World War II era, each leaving its imprint on the public housing experience.

By the time the final decades of the 20th century approached, many people viewed public housing as a world permeated by drugs, gangs, violence, and personal frustrations. To others, such as residents and local businesses who relied on residents as their customer base, the housing projects were a vital part of the community.

Far from avoiding negative stereotypes, Fischer sees the museum as an opportunity to meet difficult topics head on, explain them, and invite public discussion. Reconstructed housing units, memorabilia, displays, and personal recollections will provide explanations and insights; museum backers hope they will serve as a forum where challenging truths can be discussed and better understood.

For some people, Fischer admitted, simply the idea of opening a National Public Housing Museum elicits a negative reaction. “That’s exactly why we need the museum," she said. “Housing issues have not gone away." Neither have many of the other social questions that formed part of the public housing experience: single-parent households, unemployment, and poor quality of education, Fischer added.

Balanced picture

"Presenting a balanced picture of these complicated realties is important," Fischer explained, noting that means presenting the happy times but not ignoring the more painful memories, too. For residents, regardless of which public housing development they lived in, the small units, stairwells, balconies, and yards "were ‘home’ and for many still evoke feelings of affection," she said.

The National Public Housing Museum will be a “museum of conscience,” she continued, not unlike the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City, which shows a rough but important part of the American experience.

For more information, contact the Driehaus Foundation at (312) 641-5772. The National Public Housing Museum website is www.publichousingmuseum.org.

^ I find it curious that the architects found it necessary to drape a veil over the building, as if to say that it wasn't acceptable as designed. It seems handsome though and I am glad that most of the building will be preserved.

What makes you say that?

I'm guessing that this is just branding.

I suspect it's a combination of wanting to meet the street like a retail building (up to the property line), needing to mark the entrance, and a way to hide ramps, elevators, and HVAC.

Compared to my humble bungalow, or the old apartment buildings I managed. The stairwell alone looks like it could support the entire structure.

Anyone have any updates on the development on Roosevelt Road next to the Target in the south loop (I forget what it's called). I was keeping an eye on it when I was in school over there last year and I was wondering how it's coming along.

Bonus: How about the Astoria Tower at 9th and State?

Thanks in advance guys.

:) It kind of does... the stairwells are frequently used as the place for lateral bracing like this.

More on New City
 

Globest.com moved a story that I consider a follow-up to the Crain's piece about reducing the condo portion of New City and replacing it with some more commercial, while also reducing project costs.

Since the developer is a client I can't really get into the nitty gritty, but I did write some thoughts down at the blog. I hope this doesn't come off as shameless promotion (I swear it really isn't my intent, and I apologize if it comes off that way) but as expression of excitement of seeing a deal come to fruition.

Thanks very much for the update. It's disappointing that the residential component has been reduced so drastically, now to 280 units, though the replacement uses could potentially be very positive. If you are able to comment on it without breaching any agreements, could you speak to whether this eliminates the highrise portion of the project, or rather includes only the highrise and eliminates midrise residential? Or would one of these highrise or midrise instead simply be a hotel use? Would the site be developed to allow addition of more residential once market conditions improve some years down the road? If a hotel and/or cinema are planned for inclusion, presumably this would also require and amendment to the PD?

It's great news to hear that theater and hotel components are being considered. As it is, the only cinema multiplexes for first-run feature movies are far from transit and in auto-oriented areas: Webster Place, City North, etc. They're not really places most Lincoln Park/Lakeview residents could walk to, nor particularly convenient for access via transit or taxi. Something at North/Clybourn would be highly accessible to tens of thousands of people via the Red Line, 8/72 buses, and plentiful taxis. Ditto for hotels, which are otherwise heavily concentrated in the Central Area with very few options in Lincoln Park and Lakeview.

On a tangentially related note, can you comment at all on progress of another Structured project, the "Metro 290" or whatever it's called at Racine/Eisenhower, with a rental apartment highrise, cinema, and other retail?

I would also like to know this, although I understand your need to keep some level of privacy for Structured.

I agree with Viva's comments regarding movie theater and hotel use; those seem like smart and much-needed additions to the neighborhood, especially so close to transit access.

I'm not sure whether I can comment on any specific New City development plans right now, but I will look into it later this week. I prefer generally to let my clients do the talking and then comment once everything is released to the media.

I can, however, tell you that Structured is no longer involved in Metro 290, now known as West Loop Promenade. See here for details.

Knocking out granite at the Mercantile Exchange

http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/4836/p1130614rn7.jpg

^ This building might indeed look much better with these alterations. I've never been a fan of it at all.

These are for BP, which is occupying space in the windowless podium that was formerly used as a trading floor. Krueck and Sexton have been tapped for the exterior renovations. I have faith in them.

Michigan Avenue Bridge River Walkway
 

October 3, 2008

:previous:

I have never seen a pile driver work at such an angle before. I hope they know where they are going and do not hit any old freight tunnels.

Thanks for the photos.

After the last flood the city installed watertight bulkheads in the drifts so if one was punctured again the entire loop wouldn't flood. Though I'm sure the city is still being careful.

^^Maybe piles are angled in to help control wakes and waves??:shrug:

GRANT PARK ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING

We have changed the date and location to accommodate more panelists and to secure a spectacular venue overlooking Grant Park and Monroe Harbor: Burnham's green centerpiece.

Please save the date - more details will be forthcoming.

Daniel Burnham's and Edward Bennett's Plan of Chicago and Grant Park: 100 years later - What would Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett think? How far have we come and where are we going?

Grant Park Advisory Council and Grant Park Conservancy public meeting


Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 6:30 p.m. at the new Spertus Building at 610 N. Michigan Avenue - Crown Family Great Hall - 9th Floor.



The Centennial of the 1909 Plan of Chicago is almost here and we are assembling a panel of experts to discuss Grant Park (along with Monroe Harbor, the Plan's formal "front door"). This will be part of a series of discussions over the next year. The history over the last hundred years, the present and where we are going will all be discussed in a visual presentation.

Also, coming in 2009, is the 50th anniversy of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Chicago and the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This area, where she arrived, is known as Queen's Landing at Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. It was the first time in history that a reigning British monarch had come to Chicago.

Thank you,

Bob O'Neill
312-927-6795.

^ Well, maybe the City can get the Queen back for an anniversary visit - then the city would have to take down those pedestrian barriers on LSD.

I'm sure it's angled to avoid some obstacle... indeed, it might even be a freight tunnel. My map of the system shows a tunnel running diagonally from Michigan/Wacker to Rush/North Water (Trump's plaza) which would run directly underneath this site.

Many freight tunnels have been commandeered by ComEd and AT&T, since it's a lot cheaper to run utility lines in these tunnels than to build whole new conduits underground. In fact, these utility companies have pumped out many of the tunnels and installed bulkheads between the dry and flooded sections. Hitting a tunnel could not only cause flooding, but also power and phone blackouts in River North and along the Mag Mile.

October 6, 2008
I think the bubbles are from welding, they seemed to have smoke in them, couldn't quite catch that on "film".
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October 7, 2008
Another crane coming down the river
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Tween State & Wabash
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I keep on thinking of the African Queen
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Great shot, Harry! :tup:

Smoke on the water
 

The smell of a wood fire is nice, but not downtown.
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This is from 6:50am, would appear that the pilings lit while the cap was being cut off/maintained.
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Dried over the span of many many years, periodically soaked in creasote, capped with an impervious metal cover.
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Still going an hour later
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^^^Wow. They were still hosing it down at 6:30pm yesterday, too. I was still able to smell it in the air.

this happened this morning. :shrug: :haha:

Great shots. Interesting picture on Wells. I guess I haven't been paying attention, but it looks like they've started repair work on the Wells St. bridge.

I was on the #11 bus one morning a few weeks ago when they called out an emergency reroute to LaSalle St, because the bridge was not structurally sound for buses. I thought that was pretty funny considering they were still allowing trains to pass. Anyway, I suppose it had something to do with the decking on the bridge, because they continue to allow cars on it, but no buses.

I would love to tour one of those old tunnels. Pretty crazy that there was such an expansive network.

....are they going to do the underbridge connection under Wabash ? ...I know they are doing the Michigan Ave under bridge but I though budget constraints had stopped the planned connection under Wabash ? ....does anyone have the answer ?

They are definitely getting ready to pull out those pilings ( photos later ).

.....why would they pull the piling out under State St ? .there are no pilings under the Wabash Bridge and THAT is the bridge that is (was) scheduled to get an under-bridge connection ...not State Street ? (not this year anyway) .....maybe Daley is already spending the Midway money ?! :shrug: :shrug:

^^ Now that the pilings have been burned, they won't do a very good job of keeping boats from crashing into the bridge.

..that depends how bad they were burned...

I wonder when the last time the Fire Department boat was actually used.

If you look back at the pictures you have your answer. Walsh Construction is the one doing the angled pille and that is at Michigan Ave. Rausch Construction is working at a different bridge, which appears to for sure be Wabash given the proximity to Trump in the background.

Soke on the Water - II
 

6:54am - note the oil sheen spreading out already.
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The old casing
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There was an asphalt cap.
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http://lh6.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1090369.JPG


Piling pulling stuff - this was on site before the fire.
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