Studio Gang Apartment Design For St. Louis Has Distinctive Onion Flavor
Chicago’s Studio Gang has unveiled the dramatic design for a proposed 36-story apartment building in midtown St. Louis that looks, to me at least, like a bloomin’ onion. The tasty yet unhealthy 1,954-calorie Outback Steakhouse appetizer bears a similar leaflike appearance to Studio Gang’s first St. Louis skyscraper. Englewood, New Jersey-based Mac Properties is the developer. The $130 million project is expected to...
Plans For New McDonald’s Headquarters Unwrapped
The McDevelopment of the month is McDonald’s Corporation’s announcement that it plans to move its headquarters from suburban Oak Brook to Chicago’s Fulton Market District. Adding even more pizazz to the headline: the specific location is Chicago’s treasured Harpo Studios, the former production location for The Oprah Winfrey Show at 1058 West Washington Boulevard. Tonight Sterling Bay, the developer who purchased the land...
Little Opposition to R.I.C.’s New Hospital Tower in Gold Coast
A few days before the Thanksgiving break, a public meeting was held to explain the new skyscraper that the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago wants to build at 630 North McClurg Court. If that address sounds familiar, it should. It’s the former location of the CBS building, and if you hated this past election for what our political process has become, it all started in that building. But that’s a story for another time. In the...
Will a Scrawnier Wolf Get Everyone on Point?
The current champion for largest and most controversial development in downtown Chicago (that actually has a chance of happening) is making its way through the approval process largely unscathed. Wolf Point (350 North Orleans Street) is the lupine child of Houston-based global mega-developer Hines, and Chicago-based local really-wanna-be-huge-someday developer Magellan. Their architect, Pelli Clarke Pelli has made some changes to the...
Developers Tell Economy To STFU; Will Build Lake Street Tower Anyway
For the first time in 14 years, an office tower is going up in Chicago without already having a raft of tenants lined up. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Hines, Ivanhoe Cambridge, and Chicago’s own Larry Levy are moving forward with their new Fulton River District skyscraper at 444 West Lake Street called River Point. We wrote about this building at least as far back as 2008 when we heard it was going to be scaled...
Details About New Gold Coast Skyscraper at 410 East Grand
Back in July, Crain’s Chicago Business reported about a proposal to finally replace an old surface parking lot on Grand Avenue with a residential tower. Recently there has been a lot of chatter on the internet about this project, so here are some details. Part of the buzz claims that this is part of a land swap between Golub Real Estate and the Rahabilitation Institute of Chicago. While a swap may have taken place, Golub has...
West Loop Tower Opposition Could Change Design, Landscape
People living in the West Loop are getting a better understanding of their potential new neighbor: a 22-story office tower to be erected on a surface parking lot currently owned by Old Saint Patrick’s Church. The Old Saint Patrick’s Tower (not its official name, just an allonym we’re using here) is the latest in a string of minor skyscrapers to go up in the neighborhood, which is rapidly transforming from a...
Planned West Loop Skyscraper Flips From Apartments to Offices
The next building to alter Chicago’s West Loop skyline won’t bring in new neighbors after all. Jupiter Realty Company, the developer of 108 North Jefferson Street, has radically changed its plans for the 20-story, 290-foot-tall tower. Instead of hundreds of new residences, the building is going commercial. The Solomon Cordwell Bunez-designed building will look much like many other sleek blue glass buildings added to...
Streeterville Skyscraper Stalled by Green Screen
The residential tower proposed for one of the last open plots of land along Lake Shore Drive in Streeterville has been delayed. 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly had the 45-story project called 500 Lake Shore Drive (actually at 516 North Lake Shore Drive) pulled from the agenda of today’s Chicago Plan Commission meeting because of concerns over how the building’s lower facade looks. The building is a bog standard rectangle...
More Info About Lakeshore East’s Newest Skyscraper
Magellan Development isn’t wasting any time getting its newest Lakeshore East project off the ground. You could see dirt turn for the temporarily-named “Building A” (345 East Wacker Drive) as soon as next week (May 16-20), as soil sampling gets underway. Image courtesy of Brininstool, Kerwin and Lynch You may remember from our earlier coverage that Building A is the planned residential skyscraper to be built just...
