The plan to replace a pair of downtown surface parking lots with a pair of pretty-good-sized skyscrapers at 601 West Monroe Street has been revised.
When we gave you the bird’s eye low down on this caper last month, we noted that adding over a thousand new homes to this block of the city was going to bring Urinetown to the West Loop faster than Broadway in Chicago. Heritage Green, immediately next door, is already very well watered by the neighborhood mongrels, thankyouverymuch. And it probably can’t stand too much more love from the free willies that treat the entire park like a men’s room trough at Comiskey Park. Ants are the least of your worries if you lay down a blanket for a nice picnic.
In deference to the defecating darlings, Rain City developer Pacific Reach Properties has agreed to add a 3,000-square-foot dog park to its building. It doesn’t sound like much. And the rendering doesn’t look like much. But ever since dogs went from protectors to companions to fashion accessories, most of the ones found in this neighborhood are actually smaller than a cat. So a 30 by 100-foot slice of Astroturf might be enough to provide relief for all the chihuahuas, terriers, and wiener dogs in 601. That sound on the wind is Heritage Green sighing with relief.
Location: 601 West Monroe Street, West Loop
Editor founded the Chicago Architecture Blog in 2003, after a long career in journalism. He can be reached at chicagoarchitectureinfo@gmail.com.
