Insert tower crane here
It was with a great sigh of relief that architecture enthusiasts greeted the design of 171 North Halsted Street when it was presented to the public just about a year ago. Well, keep exhaling because the building you loved on paper is well on its way to becoming a concrete and steel reality.
The Chicago Architecture Blog’s Daniel Schell went a calling recently and found the hardware store that was once there is long gone, the foundation is done, and the tower crane is starting to be assembled.
171 North Halsted
You’ll remember 171 as the first Chicago skyscraper since the Trump tower to have a rounded facade. The break from the usual Chicago pattern of big-tall-box-on-top-of-little-squatty-box brought tears to skyscraper nerds around Chicagoland.
Preservationists broke out the confetti and dancing girls because the developers are participating in the city’s Adopt-a-Landmark program. In exchange for letting the residential skyscraper grow a little taller, the developers are kicking in $735,000 to rehabilitate the old Mid-City Bank Building down the street at 2 South Halsted.
There is one small change in the tower’s design since we last reported on it. The number of parking spaces has been reduced from 159 spaces to 137, because when Booth Hansen was doing the final designs of the building, it couldn’t squeeze 159 spaces in the garage because of the size and locations of the support columns.
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- Insert tower crane here
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- 171 North Halsted is being built up against the back wall of 727 West Lake Street.
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- Scaffolding, 171 North Halsted.
