The surface parking and muddy mess that once was Wolf Point are now officially memories, as the Wolf Point West tower (350 North Orleans Street) begins to stake its claim along the Chicago riverfront.
This photo was taken last evening by one of our Fulton River District spies. It shows the residential building–designed by friends-of-the-blog and Chicago’s own bKL Architecture–is up to its 13th floor already. Just 35 stories left to go!
Once Wolf Point West is complete, the other two Wolf Point buildings (combination office and hotel towers designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli of Connecticut) can go up.
Location: 350 North Orleans Street, River North
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August 1, 2015
Can they safely build that close to the river’s edge? I’m sure they wouldn’t be doing it if they couldn’t, but I’m curious about what it takes to engineer for that challenge. What is the geology of the soil and what other physical intricacies are there to the site?
August 2, 2015
My guess is that the geotechnical report for that piece of land is several hundred pages long, so I’m not going to detail it here.
Remember that rivers aren’t eternally deep. The Chicago River at that point is actually pretty shallow. Driving building pilings to a depth below the river would be pretty easy. Plus, there are dozens and dozens of other skyscrapers just as close to the river. These people have done this before. They know what they’re doing.