CHICAGO | 357 N Green | 640 FT

[Randomguy34]

Chicago Plan Commission presentation: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/...t_DRAFT_JS.pdf






https://chicago.urbanize.city/post/o...es-357-n-green

[SolarWind]

July 3, 2023



No news, just a current view of the site.

[Randomguy34]

Updated proposal is no longer office, now residential. It looks weird

357 N Green | 640 ft | 698 units | 530 parking spots


https://chicityclerkelms.chicago.gov...9-001DD80972A9

[lakeshoredrive]

640ft is a nice height bump

[WestTowner]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

Updated proposal is no longer office, now residential. It looks weird

357 N Green | 640 ft | 698 units | 530 parking spots

Burnett really needs to get a consistent standard for parking. We've seen really low ratios. This is a short walk to the blue line and the grand bus. Silly high ratio.

[Zapatan]

I kinda dig it, and the height bump obviously.

[mh777]

Wow.. awesome news. Don't usually see height bumps like this, especially in the macro environment were in. Downtown badly needs new apartments, and this is a start. Big plus Onni is the developer too. Higher likelihood this actually gets built.

[BrickellBased]

Is this the one that would supposedly block an underground tunnel for future rail expansion?

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by WestTowner

Burnett really needs to get a consistent standard for parking. We've seen really low ratios. This is a short walk to the blue line and the grand bus. Silly high ratio.

It's also a really short and easy walk to the Loop and Fulton Market, where the majority of the tenants will work. They could cut the parking in half. The Row gets by just fine with 144 spaces for 300 units.

Originally Posted by BrickellBased

Is this the one that would supposedly block an underground tunnel for future rail expansion?

Correct, it would effectively kill the right of way that's been set aside for high-speed rail expansion.

[Chisouthside]

i wonder if there is high demand for rentals and that is enough to get these devs over the top when overcoming the high interest rates to build.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by r18tdi

Correct, it would effectively kill the right of way that's been set aside for high-speed rail expansion.

Absolute shame. Really bring me down on an otherwise exciting project.

Is there anything that can be done to still preserve the ROW?

[BrickellBased]

It's disappointing but I feel the chances of HSR happening here in the next 25 years are vanishingly small.

The city and state are some of the worst off financially in the union and HSR is mega expensive.

They can't even find the funds for a proper O'Hare expansion and modernization which is gonna probably take another 10 years.

[Toasty Joe]

What's annoying is that I believe they could come up with an undoubtedly pricier engineering solution that leaves the HSR ROW clear while allowing the development to be built, but there seems to be a lack of interest at the IDOT, CDOT, and developer levels.

I brought up to Ald. Burnett and the developer at one of these meetings, and it seemed to be the first Burnett had heard of it. Developer shrugged it off as something CDOT is not prioritizing, even to my follow up that it impacts far more than CDOT.

I haven't looked at the new plans, but I'm highly skeptical they took this re-design opportunity to save the ROW.

[chi_raven]

Does anyone have any links regarding this HSR ROW?

I searched around a bit and found a few old articles, but the only recent articles I've found are related to CrossRail.

[Toasty Joe]

Ardecila had some good insights back at the end of 2022 when this was initially proposed:

Originally Posted by ardecila

Easier to sketch it than to explain verbally. Rail corridor and tunnel portal shown in purple with the Blue Line tunnels shown in blue. The K Station PD was pretty good about preserving the corridor for future rail and not putting buildings or deep foundations in the way - K2 preserved a strip of land, Echelon/Alta stair-stepped their podiums around the curved part of the tunnel, and the Jewel just decked over it with a wide span.

West of Halsted is a different set of PDs with different developers, and I'm not sure the city ever preserved that part of the corridor. Sterling Bay started 360 N Green with a design that clearly blocked the corridor, and now they have switched to one where the corridor is effectively preserved with a pocket park so maybe that's a good sign...

I also showed in yellow a separate plan to add a 4th track into Union Station. That is more likely to happen before we get a tunnel, and K Station also preserved some land for that.

Originally Posted by ardecila

Well, presumably the best use of a West Loop rail tunnel is for regional trains, and not for intercity/HSR.

From an engineering standpoint, this corridor saves a ton of money. There's already a complicated web of infrastructure here, with the Kennedy and the Blue Line running below grade, Metra tracks and streets running at-grade, and Halsted/Desplaines and the UP-W tracks runing above grade. The "HSR corridor" is by far the most cost-effective way to weave through this thicket, because it allows trains to go over the Hubbard's Cave trench and the Blue Line tunnel instead of deep beneath them.

The alternative is that you start your rail tunnel near Kinzie/Racine for another 1/2 mile of tunneling and just dive under everything in the way. If the costs are similar to San Francisco's DTX tunnel, that is a whopping $1bn for the extra 1/2 mile of tunneling - the cost of another Circle Interchange project, and probably 3x the cost of the proposed tower at 357 N Green.

[sentinel]

I liked the previous design, but the new design is appealing too. Will wait to pass scathing judgment (or not) once a render is released.

[Briguy]

It’s a shame, because with the residential switch they probably could have placed the core so that future rail was possible. Instead they’re just re using the office base with a new tower.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Toasty Joe

Ardecila had some good insights back at the end of 2022 when this was initially proposed:

Thanks for pulling all that up!

Yes, this is a disappointment. It's a shame because I really like the design otherwise, the grand stair from Green St up to Halsted is a really strong urban move. The vista west down the existing Metra tracks is shaping up into a really cool urban canyon, the grand stair (and the retail/restaurant spaces) will be an awesome place to look out over the city.

That said, I now understand a bit more about the long-term plans for Union Station and it should be possible to get a couple of through-running platforms in the existing station. That would still be a very challenging project (moving columns etc) but a fraction of the cost of a new tunnel. A 4th lead track into the north side of Union and elevating the line through West Loop are also cheaper alternatives. If Chicago is gonna spend the big bucks on a tunnel, they should probably extend the Metra Electric line through Streeterville and River North to meet up with the UP lines near Clybourn. Over there, a tunnel is really the only option.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Thanks for pulling all that up!

Yes, this is a disappointment. It's a shame because I really like the design otherwise, the grand stair from Green St up to Halsted is a really strong urban move. The vista west down the existing Metra tracks is shaping up into a really cool urban canyon, the grand stair (and the retail/restaurant spaces) will be an awesome place to look out over the city.

That said, I now understand a bit more about the long-term plans for Union Station and it should be possible to get a couple of through-running platforms in the existing station. That would still be a very challenging project (moving columns etc) but a fraction of the cost of a new tunnel. A 4th lead track into the north side of Union and elevating the line through West Loop are also cheaper alternatives. If Chicago is gonna spend the big bucks on a tunnel, they should probably extend the Metra Electric line through Streeterville and River North to meet up with the UP lines near Clybourn. Over there, a tunnel is really the only option.

The Carroll Street bridge is too low to be down a significant portion of the time?

[gandalf612]

Realistically though, what destinations are even worth reaching by high-speed rail from this alignment? Optimal distance is 100-500 miles so the corridor would at best look like Rockford (350k), Madison (700k), La Crosse (150k), Rochester (225k), Minneapolis (4M) 5.5M total and past Minneapolis there is nothing of note within 500 miles in any direction except Des Moines, which at 740k is hardly worth the expense

For the same distance we could get Mich City (32k), South Bend (325k), Kalamazoo (260k), Lansing (100k), Ann Arbor (370k), Detroit (4.4M), London (540k), branch at Hamilton (785k) to Toronto (6M) and Buffalo (1.2M) for a total of 12.8 M for Toronto and 8 M for Buffalo

And it would be cheaper because we already have an existing electrified alignment as far as South Bend, making upgrading it to HSR so much easier. And you could pull on two federal governments for funding

from Toronto we could extend to Ottawa (1.5M), Montreal (4M), Quebec (840k)
from Buffalo we could extend to Rochester (1.1M), Syracuse (660k), Albany (635k), NYC (20M) and the entire North East corridor.

Like sure having Chicago to Minneapolis would be wonderful in a fantasy land, but realistically we'd only be able to get one 500 mile route in the next 50 years and the choice for that is rather blatantly obvious.