Near North Firehouse Plan Returns as a 29-Story Office Tower
The 2017 plan to replace the Chicago Engine Company 42 fire station with a skyscraper is back in play. At a public meeting last week, Friedman Properties unveiled its more fully-realized notion for the space — a 29-story office tower designed by Goettsch Partners. The fire station won’t go away. Instead, a new 29,000 square-foot fire station will be incorporated into the new skyscraper, making the firefighters of 42 house...
New Downtown Chicago Fire Station Comes With a Big Question Mark
Chicago has explored a number of public/private partnerships in recent years. Things like putting libraries inside apartment buildings, and tea houses in parks. Now one of the city’s downtown fire stations may be the next city facility hop on the bandwagon. In a remarkably detail-free e-mail to his constituents, 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly announced that the Engine Company 42 building at 444 North Dearborn Street may be...
More Residential Development Coming to the Heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast
The ever-changing face of Chicago’s Viagra Triangle district is changing once again. Once known for seedy strip clubs, then more respectable clubs, then trendy night clubs and restaurants, it is slowly becoming a place where people want to stay for more than a few hours. Earlier this year, the Viceroy Hotel opened its doors inside the skin of what was the old Hotel Cedar. A couple of years earlier, the old Sutton Place Hotel...
Three Years Later, a River North Skyscraper is Redesigned and Reproposed
It’s been a little while since the last proposal for a residential skyscraper in River North. But things are starting to roll again. In an e-mail to constituents, 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly announced that 353 West Grand is in play again. You may remember that address as the former home of the Clark and Barlow hardware store. It’s been a little over a year since we last wrote about this property. Back in April of...
Related Midwest Drives an 1,100-Foot-Tall Nail Into The Chicago Spire’s Coffin
If you’ve spent the last eight years waiting for someone to drive the final nail into The Chicago Spire’s coffin, Related Midwest is your carpenter. Tonight the River North real estate developer pulled the cloak off of a duo of towers it plans to erect at the site of Chicago’s most magnificent hole — 400 Lake Shore Drive. 400 is an SOM design crafted by David Childs, known mostly for his work on such New York...
Massive New Michigan Ave Tower Uncovered and What It Might Look Like
We’ve known for a long time that CIM Group has big plans for the surface parking lot behind the Tribune Tower. But we didn’t know they were this big. The Los Angeles developer which bought the Trib building in 2016 with plans to convert the gothic skyscraper into residences so exclusive the internet hasn’t come up with a word for it yet, wants to put up Chicago’s third-tallest building, right at the foot of the...
Alderman Sends Three-Tower Lakeshore East Plan Back to the Drawing Board
Remember that sultry, silvery sliver of a skyscraper that you lusted after during the summer? Well, the gales of December have blown in, and you can just forget about her. 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly has informed Magellan Development and LendLease that their proposed three-tower plan for completing the northeast corner of Lakeshore East is a non-starter. Mr. Reilly says he received hundreds of comments from his constituents...
Why Fix It? City to Pave Over its Gold Coast Problem
If you’ve been hoping for the last decade that the City of Chicago might finally get around to repairing and re-opening the tunnels beneath the intersection of Michigan and Oak Street, forget it. It’s not gonna happen. It’s been about ten years since the pedestrian conveniences were shuttered. Each day hundreds of commuters used them to cross the intersection without having to stand on the corner waiting for a walk...
River North’s Newest Public Park Opens at Exhibit on Superior
As downtown Chicago ads more and more residents, the ratio of people to greenspace grows increasingly lopsided. That’s part of the reason so many people were happy to see River thth’s newest public park open late last week. The park is on the west side of Exhibit on Superior (165 West Superior Street), the 35-story residential tower designed by the Loop’s bKL Architecture for Magellan Development and Mac Management....
Developers Detail Big Big Big Plans for Lakeshore East
After weeks of anticipation, skyscraper nerds, architecture enthusiasts, and the just plain curious got the information they’ve been craving about how the development of Lakeshore East will end. The answer: With an 875-foot-tall bang. At a crowded public meeting at the Hyatt Regency, hosted by 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly, architects and developers took the wraps off of two major projects: The final three skyscrapers...
