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...
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...
Vista Tower Comes Into View
The Vista Tower (363 East Wacker Drive) — one of Chicago’s near-future showcase pieces — is rising quickly along the main branch of the Chicago River. So quickly that it’s already visible to passing tour boats. These pictures from Joe Zekas at YoChicago! show not only the Studio Gang-designed building going up, but also the column-free area in the center, where East Upper Wacker Drive will finally be connected to North...
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...
What 300 North Michigan May Look Like
Just ten days after the Chicago Tribune reported that a tower plan was in the works for the empty mixed-use building at the corner of North Michigan Avenue and East Wacker Place, a bell rang as someone dropped a set of potential renderings in our Tip Line. The Tip Line jingles surprisingly regularly with renderings claiming to be this unbuilt skyscraper, or that unannounced condo block. For the most part they’re student...
300 North Michigan Penciled in for a Tower — Again
An old commercial building in the NoMiSoRi (North Michigan South of the River — pronounced “No Misery”) micro-neighborhood is in play again. The former retail and office building that was most recently a Walgreens, but originally constructed as a warehouse, has been the subject of this kind of talk before. Especially after The John Buck Company and bKL Architecture took a nearly identical space a block south and turned it...
bKL’s Exhibit On Superior Gets its First Art
When you call a skyscraper “Exhibit,” it’s natural to expect the building to come with some nice art. And that’s exactly what happened at bKL’s Exhibit on Superior (165 West Superior Street) this snowy week. When plans for Exhibit (then called 720 LaSalle) were unveiled by Magellan Development, neighbors were excited about the public parklet on the north side of the property. That space now has a focal...
Chicago’s 93-Story Vista Tower Breaks Ground
With lucky red shovels in hand, friends, financiers, politicians, developers, and architects held a ceremonial groundbreaking today for the Vista Tower at 363 East Wacker Drive. Perched on the grassy bit behind The Tides, the gathered dignitaries and international press could see work already well underway in the dirt patches on either side of North Field Boulevard. The 93-story building being developed by China’s Wanda Group...
It’s a Race to the Top on Wells Street
If you love a good construction site, then Wells Street is the place to be. We’ve shown you this area before, back when it was just foundations on either side of North Wells Street between Erie and Ontario. Now that 167 West Erie and its neighbor across the street, 640 North Wells are both well on their way toward completion, it makes for a much more compelling scene, captured by Joe Zekas of YoChicago!. 167 is a 39-story...
