CHICAGO | Boom rundown - everything over 12 floors. v5

[SolarWind]

January 3, 2008

Silver Tower


Staybridge Suites




Superior 110




The Clare at Water Tower








50 East Chestnut


Dana Hotel




353 North Clark

[Pandemonious]

Nice updates. I can't wait to see how the Staybridge Suites turns out. River North needs more interesting architecture like it.

[SolarWind]

The Esquire Theater was mentioned a few times on a previous page. Here's a picture taken Thursday looking east along Oak Street.

[i_am_hydrogen]

^Beautiful.

[10023]

I wish they had just refurbished the movie theater. I used to like that one.

But I don't think anything more than a 5-6 story high end retail development should go there. None of that H&M/Zara type crap or middling brands like Coach and Cole-Haan.

[harryc]

Superior 110 ( click on image for full size )





[IMG][/IMG]

[spyguy]

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?article_id=29057

Alter's grand hotel plan
1,500-room complex at McCormick Place could include casino
Eddie Baeb and Alby Gallun

...Alter hired architect Lucien Lagrange to design two 21-story hotel towers with a total of 1,500 rooms, which would make it the fourth-largest hotel in the city, the person says.

[10023]

Originally Posted by spyguy

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?article_id=29057

Alter's grand hotel plan
1,500-room complex at McCormick Place could include casino
Eddie Baeb and Alby Gallun

...Alter hired architect Lucien Lagrange to design two 21-story hotel towers with a total of 1,500 rooms, which would make it the fourth-largest hotel in the city, the person says.

Hopefully these are more Erie on the Park than Elysian, given the neighborhood and everything else.

I will say that if a casino is built anywhere, next door to McCormick Place is the appropriate place. Collect money from those convention visitors, not Chicagoans.

[honte]

Originally Posted by spyguy

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?article_id=29057

Alter's grand hotel plan
1,500-room complex at McCormick Place could include casino
Eddie Baeb and Alby Gallun

...Alter hired architect Lucien Lagrange to design two 21-story hotel towers with a total of 1,500 rooms, which would make it the fourth-largest hotel in the city, the person says.

This sucks. First they hire a crappy architect. Second, they propose to tear down this wonderful, Chicago-school warehouse, perfectly reusable:





Sorry for the poor quality of the images - they were public domain, all I have access to at the moment.

The largest building on the far right is Howard Van Doren Shaw's landmarked Lakeside Center. The building in question is directly west of that, with the green-roofed tower.

[harryc]

Originally Posted by honte

This sucks. First they hire a crappy architect. Second, they propose to tear down this wonderful, Chicago-school warehouse, perfectly reusable:

The largest building on the far right is Howard Van Doren Shaw's landmarked Lakeside Center. The building in question is directly west of that, with the green-roofed tower.

I think this is the Lakeside center, not sure

click on photo for full size

[simcityaustin]

^^^ Wow, that's actually pretty nice. Seems like there would be a lot better spaces in this area. Why don't they tear up some of the surface parking and just build the hotel there, with garages to makes up for lost spaces?

[honte]

Yes Harry, that is the landmarked building, Lakeside Technology Center, which is safe from demolition. Information about it: http://www.progressiveengineer.com/pewebbackissues2004/PEWeb%2048%20Mar%2004-2/Lakeside.htm

The building that attaches to the other side of the bridge in your photos is the one in question.

Incidentally, not sure if anyone cares, but the two rather bland buildings north of that - which are also going to be demolished in the Alter Plan - were very late works of Albert Kahn, the great industrial architect from Detroit.

[aaron38]

Originally Posted by SolarWind

Silver Tower

There's probably an alley there, but it's kind of a pet peve of mine that new projects don't make more of an effort to cover up those blank side walls of buildings - the ones that were left blank with the expectation that a building would go there eventually. It would've been nice to get a seamless streetwall there, as intended.

But overall that new crop of River North buildings are doing a good job on infill.

[aaron38]

Originally Posted by spyguy

Alter's grand hotel plan

That's Prairie Ave. Shouldn't PDNA go protest things like that, instead of X/O?

[harryc]

From above [ full set http://picasaweb.google.com/harry.r.carmichael/155NWackerHeli ]



[ click on these for full size ]





Self raising core



[ click for full size ]







Diesel crane



click on these for full size

[Jaroslaw]

That's a real pity about the Alter site(s). On both the north corners of Cermak and Prairie, half block to the west of this, there are large short worthless buildings...

This is the guy in question, McCormick 2007 is behind me:



From the west:



From the Hyatt, on the left side. The tech center (actually one of the most important internet traffic interchanges in America) is on the right:



====

I've tried to find some more information on the diesel-powered cranes, vs. electric, but no luck. Except that they're getting more popular in America, I guess because with an electric crane you still have to have a diesel generator somewhere on site. Does anyone have anything more technical, like product spec pages?

[Chicago Shawn]

The Granville...
















Admiral at the Lake, watch out for this one, caisson marking stakes are in the ground...










Two other nearby sites itching for development...

[firstcranialnerve]

^Where on earth is the Alderman on this? I would love to make sure they use some surface lots or knock down one of those dilapidated little boxes nearby.

[Chicago Shawn]

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

From the article, in re: the Chabad site at Clark/Chestnut:

"Reilly said he's cautioning anyone interested in the site not to think too grandly. He said he won't even take to the neighborhood any proposal for something taller than a mid-rise. Others have said a 15-story building could be proposed."

Moronic! Great, so there will be no religious center built there at all, no way it could be cramed into a mid-rise with a private residential development component. He really can burn some bridges with this from anyone affiliated with Chabad, and quite frankely how the hell does he know the nieghborhood would oppose a taller structure? He has his own agenda of what he wants the nighborhood to be. A diversity of organizations is a positive thing for the Central Area, and putting tax generating property above them is even better.

Also, I am really tired of hearing about the "charm" of Oak Street. Most of those buildings have been stripped of historic features in renovations and installations of large display windows. As far as scale, there is a 20 story mid-block high-rise with no setbacks at 40 East Oak, about 100 feet west of the Esquire Theater, which obviously does not upset the "low-rise feel" of the street, because everyone seems to forget about it. A 12 story hotel will do nothing more to change the precived scale of the street. Furthermore, there is also quite a bit of community support in favor of the hotel.

[Chicago Shawn]

Originally Posted by firstcranialnerve

^Where on earth is the Alderman on this? I would love to make sure they use some surface lots or knock down one of those dilapidated little boxes nearby.

Mary Ann Smith, 48th Ward. On a positive note, she will be speaking at a presentation this Thursday hosted by MPC on Transit Oriented Development. Perhaps she has some plans of what she would like to see.