Digging Dirt in the Future DuSable Park
Thirty years after Chicago Mayor Harold Washington named the spit of land along the Chicago River east of Lake Shore Drive DuSable Park, dirt is once again moving to make the vision a reality. There have been dozens and dozens of ideas floated for the grassy, radioactive nub officially designated Jean Baptiste Pointe. But the only real action there in the last 15 years was when it was used for construction staging for the failed...
Chicago’s Pioneer Court Apple Store Opens in 3… 2… 1…
Apple’s new Michigan Avenue flagship store opens for business this morning. The Cupertino, California computer and gadget company made a splash several years ago when it revealed that it would shutter its 2003 flagship at Michigan and Huron and move six blocks down the street to take over the underground cafeteria and utility space at 401 North Michigan Avenue. The most important thing the building did is create a workable...
Fifty Floors and Still Rising at One Bennett Park
One of our favorite construction projects of 2017 has reached a milestone. Construction at One Bennett Park, the condos-over-apartments stack at 451 East Grand Avenue has reached the 50th floor. That means with this latest concrete pour, the Related Midwest skyscraper is at 71% of its eventual 70-floor stature. If you’d like to measure its progress in height, then it’s up to 540 feet; or 65% of its eventual 836-foot...
Downtown Chicago Apple Flagship To Open October 20
The opening of the new Steve Jobs theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, California wasn’t the only architecture news of note today. During Apple’s annual iPhone presentation, a portion of the show was given over to the technology company’s Senior Vice President of Retail, Angela Ahrendts. She let the world know that the new Apple Store at Pioneer Court on Michigan Avenue will open October 20th. “Our team has...
One Bennett Park About to Eclipse 500LSD
We just can’t get enough of One Bennett Park, the Related Midwest luxury tower that’s bringing a taste of Gotham to Streeterville. Fortunately, we don’t need ISO 12312-2 certified eyewear to gaze upon this star of downtown Chicago’s construction solar system. Joe Zekas of YoChicago! sent in the drool-worthy photograph above showing the Robert A.M. Stern joint is about to eclipse its next-door neighbor, 500 Lake...
Hotel EMC2 Opens in Downtown Chicago; Smart People Pack Their Bags
You don’t have to have crazy white hair and a Nobel Prize in physics to stay at downtown Chicago’s newest hotel. SMASHotels recently swung the doors open at 228 East Ontario Street in Streeterville for Hotel EMC2, welcoming all to its eclectic interior and science-themed accouterments. For those of you who aren’t scienticians, “EMC2” is a nod to the law of mass-energy equivalence. If all this is new to...
465 North Park Looks Just Lobely
It hasn’t been that long, but it’s already time for another update on the construction of 465 North Park. In our last update, we were just starting to be able to see that this isn’t going to be yet another collection of rectangles glued together (apologies to its neighbor, the North Water Apartments/Loews Hotel Tower). No, thanks to Pappageorge Haymes‘ multi-lobed design, 465 has more curves than a Vegas...
One Bennett Park Joins The Streeterville Skyline
Streeterville’s newest skyscraper is making its presence known in the neighborhood skyline. New photos sent in by Joe Zekas over at YoChicago! show One Bennett Park has reached at least its 40th floor, and is probably taller than that by the time you read this. 1BP, as its friends call it, will eventually reach 70 stories, and over 820 feet in height. Along with Building I at Lakeshore East, and the Vista Tower, it is among...
Downtown Chicago’s DuSable Park Closer to Becoming a Reality
For decades people have looked at the verdant peninsula of land sandwiched between the Chicago River and Ogden Slip and wondered how such a prime location escaped development, and wouldn’t it make a simply lovely park? The answer to both questions is simple: Radiation. The four-acre plot, bounded on three sides by water and the fourth by Lake Shore Drive is officially known on city charts as “Jean Baptiste Pointe.”...
465 North Park Starting to Show Her Curves
There is a point in the construction of every skyscraper where it goes from amorphous chaos of dirt and rebar and transforms into something resembling its future self. Like when a tadpole sprouts legs and starts to look more like a frog than a ‘wog. Or when your 12-year-old daughter puts on her first formal dress, and as a father you’re both bursting with pride, and horrified at what might come next. That cotillion...
