Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
Lol yes, it is totally silly to think of putting a supertall litterally on top of a train station two blocks off Michigan Avenue on the main E-W thouroughfare on the north side of downtown.  
Hint: it doesn't matter how tall the nearby buildings are if the site is prime enough and endowed with the correct infrastructure.
That said, most Chicago developers, JDL included, don't have the balls to develop this site to it's full potential. Wayyyy too much land in one bite so we will end up with another Block 37 or, at best, a mini River South type development.
Clearly this should be banned:
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Man, what must it have felt like to be in Chicago in the years the Aon, Hancock and Willis towers were going up? To see such astounding engineering piercing the sky.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
Hopefully the Holy Name plan includes some public space. It would be great to have some kind of pocket park there. Ideally you could do a pedestrian street through the block ala Wicker Park Connection (or City Center in DC) but I don't think the project will include the western third of the block; there's an alley running through there. |
Actually in
another article it was reported that at least the rowhouse with the law firm in it will be included, as Holy Name bought that recently expressly to bundle it with the parking lot. No word as to whether that sale included either of the small parking lots or the single story building with the dry cleaners and Italian restaurant but since the price was only $3.1 million I doubt it included all of that.
I've always thought it would be perfect to take those brownstones and move them one block north, just behind the YMCA building. It would improve that block with the other existing vintage buildings there, and free up that full city block for some interesting possibilities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21
Something just seems wrong about coming out of Chicago's "main" Cathedral and seeing a huge skyscraper staring you in the face, I used to live across the street and always kinda liked the openess there. I guess at least the parking is underground so you wont have a podium bearing down on you. Hopefully a decent setback from state...even pocket park as suggested before could help keep the feel.
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For that block I've always thought that designing it something like a taller version of
the area around the London Stock Exchange and St. Paul's Cathedral would be cool. Buildings on the edges with a smallish plaza in the center with a gap framing a view of Holy Name from the Plaza, like
down Queens Head Passage could be amazing and feed together wonderful urban spaces. If the viewline was a bit wider, or got wider toward the cathedral end, it would achieve the openness you mention. I also wish that at least one of the buildings on the block would be commercial office space, at least in part. I feel like River North could use some additional office space on the north edge to keep it lively during the day. There is some, but River North is the tightest downtown submarket, so it could definitely use some more.
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