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https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...503-story.html

Architecture critic's take on proposed One Central complex near Soldier Field: A mix of audacious and dubious

Blair KaminBlair KaminContact ReporterChicago Tribune

It is, perhaps, too soon for an architecture critic to assess Chicago’s latest megadevelopment plan, which calls for building a massive row of skyscrapers on a platform over the train tracks near Soldier Field.

The renderings are obviously preliminary. The developer’s pitch is more fiscal than architectural. Yet a plan of this scope simply cannot pass by without comment.


The overall cost of the project, called One Central, is staggering — more than $20 billion, three times the just-approved Lincoln Yards megadeal. It would have up to 20 million square feet of new office, apartment and hotel high-rises — the equivalent of nearly five Willis Towers.

Its transit center, which would serve Amtrak, Metra and CTA trains as well as buses linking lakefront attractions, is grandly pitched as “America’s transit hub.” And its developer is promising that the project will produce a long-term boost of $57 billion in new state tax revenue, a sum that surely would help financially struggling Illinois meet its pension obligations.