Mayor’s Invest South/West Program May Save An Art Moderne Bank Building
We’re starting to see the first signs of something more than press releases coming out of Mayor Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West program to revitalize chronically overlooked portions of the city. One of those signs is a proposal to redevelop the old Laramie State Bank building on Chicago Avenue in the city’s Austin neighborhood. August 2020 rendering of 5200 West Chicago (Via the Chicago Department of Planning and...
Another Library/Senior Living Combo Building Arrives in West Ridge
What happens when CPL and CHA have a 1-on-1 about AARP’s? Aside from everyone breaking out their jargon dictionaries, they figure out how to achieve common goals with one building. Rendering of the Northtown Branch Library (Courtesy of Evergreen Real Estate Group) That’s how Chicago got its new Northtown Branch Library at 6800 North Western Avenue in West Ridge. The building opened recently with a Chicago Public Library on...
Ten New Skyscrapers Proposed For Chicago’s South Loop
Two weeks ago we told you that there were once again plans to deck over the Metra railroad tracks that carve through the east side of the South Loop and put up a new neighborhood. Now we know it will be called One Central, and we know it will be huge. March 2019 rendering of One Central (via Landmark Development) Landmark Development unveiled its proposal at a public meeting tonight. It will rival The 78, Lincoln Yards, 700 At The...
South Loop’s Southbank Development Gets Its First Residents
Southbank, the northern portion of what used to be the Riverline development south of Roosevelt Road, has its first people living in its first residential tower. People have started moving into The Cooper (720 South Wells Street), a 29-story building that is the first of five planned for this project. The Perkins+Will-designed building brings 452 new homes to the South Loop, in one of three new projects hugging the Chicago River....
Lendlease Rolls Out The Barrel for The Cooper at Southbank
We were going to make a bunch of silly puns about barrels of monkeys, or being over a barrel, or fish in a barrel, but we won’t. Except for that one in the headline about rolling out the barrel. That was clever. In case you don’t know, “cooper” is another word for someone who makes barrels for a living. And “The Cooper” is the name of a new residential building in the South Loop where you could...
New Erection Will Have Goose Island Sporting Wood
Yes, we're all a bunch of fifth-graders around here. But in spite of the juvenile headline, what's planned for Goose Island is clearly innovative. Texas mega-developer Hines officially plans to put up a new office building on Goose Island that's made of wood. Crain's Chicago Business first reported Hines knotty notion way back in February, and we noted back then that this isn't Hines' first time going out on this limb. It has a...
Throwback Thursday: Peeking in at Perkins + Will
Last week, Chicago’s largest architecture firm announced it is leaving the historic AMA Plaza (330 North Wabash Avenue) for the even-more-historic Wrigley Building next door at 400 North Michigan Avenue. It made us think of our last after-hours visit to Perkins + Will‘s headquarters in what was once was IBM Plaza, designed by Mies van der Rohe, who never got to see it built. So we’ve set the wayback machine to 2011...
Chicago Lands Just One Firm in This Year’s Architecture Top 25
Chicago, once a world powerhouse of manufacturing, literature, film, music, and video games can now add architecture firms to its list of industries in which it was once a leader. The city of Burnham, Sullivan, Mies, and occasionally Wright is barely a blip in the Architectural Record annual ranking of the world’s Top 300 Architecture Firms. Chicago-based Perkins+Will is saddled with the task of waving the flag for the Windy...
Northwestern Sticks a Fork in Prentice, Then Serves up a New Skyscraper Design
The former women’s hospital known as Prentice is well and truly gone. Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine sent in this latest photograph of the demolition team wrapping up their work on what some considered a landmark building, and others considered an eyesore. Then just a day into our mourning, comes word that Northwestern University is moving forward with its plan to fill...
When Doing Good for the Community is Good for the Architect
John Syvertsen has been to a lot of ribbon cuttings. The one that he’ll always remember wasn’t a high-profile project. It was the opening of an elevator. Syvertsen, senior principal at Cannon Design, is one of the many Chicago architects who try to give back to the community. He was one of the featured speakers at “Public Interest Architecture In Practice” presented by AIA Chicago on February 8 at the School of the Art Institute of...
Recent From Proposals
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The 411 on 601 West Randolph in the West Loop September 13, 2020 -
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