CHICAGO | 301 & 321 S Wacker Drive | 2 x 775 FT | 2 x 49 FLOORS

[Cress3803]

cool.. Has a Miami flair to me

[cloudbod]

Really surprised to see an all-office tower being proposed at this spot. I assumed we'd only be seeing mixed-use residential in the Loop from here on, while office towers march further west (725 W Randolph, 640 W Randolph, 315 N May St, 655 W Madison, smaller boutique offices). I'm still highly skeptical that this has legs, though.

I do like how this'd fill the last exposed corner of Sears-- I feel like gigantic centerpiece towers need tall neighbors to look balanced. 311 and BMO fill this role pretty well too.

It's interesting that rather than develop the parking lot to the south of the garden, the renderings show the garden being moved to that south lot. Is that even the plan here? Or is it just render-greenwashing?

[lakeshoredrive]

Hmm not sure how to feel about this development.

[ithakas]

I am really generally unconcerned about new skyscraper heights, but I really, really think the skyline would be best served by something between the height of 311 S. Wacker and Sears Tower at this site. I've looked at this duo imagining is as a trio for decades. Once this is built, that opportunity is lost.

Beyond this, I would also like to reiterate that it just makes sense to develop the surface parking lot on the southwest corner of the block, rather than remove the park on the northwest corner.

[anxietyrocks]

Nearby 85 story tower just sold for 45 million but this will cost almost a billion to construct...I want to be proven wrong but idk man.

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by anxietyrocks

Nearby 85 story tower just sold for 45 million but this will cost almost a billion to construct...I want to be proven wrong but idk man.

65 floors but I agree, it's incredible. The interior of 311 can't be that bad as that building is from the 90s I believe. The space in this new building looks absolutely sick though!


Sad that the combination of morale and economics is so low in this city that even a 700 footer seems too good to be true.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by anxietyrocks

Nearby 85 story tower just sold for 45 million but this will cost almost a billion to construct...I want to be proven wrong but idk man.

I get that the math may not be fully mathin’, but it’s not too far off if you look closer:
1. new construction for that tall of an office building in downtown Chicago is pretty expensive, even more so since inflation is high and increased tariffs only increase material costs further.
2. 311 S Wacker has had a rough go post-COVID (like a LOT of office buildings around the country; this is a main factor why RTO mandates are being enforced more now; office leases are expensive). Coupled with the fact that the building lost large tenants after leases expired, and the additional fact they the building is outdated with not many amenities, it starts to make more sense. $45 million is still insanely low for such a large building, where in a “normal” or healthier RE market, $450 million/10x makes much more sense, but these are not the times we live in.

At the end of the day, the new owners of 311 South got it for a massive steal, and I hope they use additional capital to make it more desirable than it currently is.

[mh777]

Considering Hines is developing this, I’m thinking they have full faith in their ability to lease this up. They just did the same thing with Salesforce. Comparing this to 311 makes no sense, as these buildings are in completely different ballparks.

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by mh777

Considering Hines is developing this, I’m thinking they have full faith in their ability to lease this up. They just did the same thing with Salesforce. Comparing this to 311 makes no sense, as these buildings are in completely different ballparks.

As cool as the shape is to look at 311's floor plans are not optimal, though 45 million was an insane lowball even taking that into account.

[anxietyrocks]

Originally Posted by mh777

Considering Hines is developing this, I’m thinking they have full faith in their ability to lease this up. They just did the same thing with Salesforce. Comparing this to 311 makes no sense, as these buildings are in completely different ballparks.

Salesforce building was on prime real estate, this one not so much. Plus wasn't most of salesforce leasing done prepandemic? That tower started construction at the top of 2020, very different circumstances now. Would love to see this go up but I can't help but have some skepticism.

[ardecila]

Remember Hines is an office developer based in Houston. They already rode out the end of the world in the 1980s during that recession (which decimated Houston's oil & gas industry especially) and came out the other side. They are probably looking ahead to the next economic cycle and trying to get a first-mover advantage, even if things look grim right now.

Originally Posted by dreamy-developer

I hope seeing that this will be where the 311 City Park is currently that they substitute it for the parking lot to the south along Van Buren.

I'm always an advocate for green space, especially in the loop where I don't feel much of that is prominent outside of Grant Park. I guess you do still have the adjacent parks to the south that hug Ida B Wells Dr, but I'll still stick with my word on this.

edit: well now that I look again at the renderings, I see on the ground floor a proposed "Winter Garden" they have in the floor plan.

The winter garden already exists, but they will blow out the north wall and integrate it into the lobby of the new tower. They will likely strip out all the most PoMo aspects of the old lobby (exactly when that stuff is coming back in style), you can see they are putting a new minimalist glass facade on the winter garden in the renderings.

It's unclear if they will turn the parking lot into a new green space, but it's certainly an eyesore right now and the new building will contain 84 parking spaces. The view from that SW corner used to be pretty grim and industrial, but now with the revitalized Post Office, Southbank resi towers, etc it could make an appealing and sunny little park.

[DCReid]

That location seems like a tough place to build a new office tower. Willis, with its 4-5 million sf, is sitting right next door. United Airlines is a large tenant. I read that Citadel is a tenant, and I would be curious to know if they have moved out as they moved their HQ to Miami and seem to have focused on adding to NYC office footprint. I actually hope the tower is not built, as it would obscure some of the view of Willis. Willis has never been my favorite Chicago skyscraper (John Hancock or whatever the name is now, has always been) and the proposal is merely half as tall, but I don't like the idea of another tower being so close.

[NYguy]

Don't know if this is anything, but it would definitely be a supertall skyscraper...





https://www.freshwatercleveland.com/...im_021726.aspx

[NYguy]

Vision


https://www.xunwang-architect.com/work-1/silver-tower

[sentinel]

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

[KWillChicago]

Looks like the legs of a T-800

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Vision

An absurd one.


Is this why young architects have a hard time designing a simple apartment building?

[lakeshoredrive]

Yuck

[Zapatan]

Interesting concept that could work some places but not here, I'd much rather see the river populated by supertalls next cycle and the original twins built here.