Details of Union Station Renovation Show Potential, Complexity
We’re learning more of the nitty-gritty details involved in the Union Station redevelopment recently approved by the City of Chicago. A lot of it is just numbers and trivia, but a few things stand out. The former Harvey House at Union Station will be renovated into a new entrance to the Great Hall from South Clinton Street. But it will also have plenty of leasable retail space. Hopefully this space will end up being another...
West Loop’s Newest Tower Is Old Saint Pat’s
The West Loop skyscraper formerly known as the Old Saint Pat’s Tower is officially done, according to Gold Coast architecture firm SCB. Today it is known by its address: 625 West Adams, and is a 20-story office building on Heritage Green Park built for White Oak Realty, CA Ventures, and Old Saint Patrick’s Church. Previously, this was a surface parking lot for the popular West Loop Catholic Church. Today, those parking spaces...
Every Web Page About the Aon Center is About to Become Wrong
If you’re a fan of Wikipedia, the wannabe encyclopedia that’s the equivalent of asking a bunch of strangers at a bus stop to do your homework, it will soon need to be updated. Along with the 8,643 other web sites that catalog skyscraper heights. Right now, the Aon Center’s “architectural height” is 1,136 feet. That means to the top of the mechanical room that hides all of the HVAC equipment. That space...
Weed Street Residential Tower Back With New Design And A Little Buddy
Plans for another residential tower in the North/Clybourn district are back in play, and bigger than before. We last showed you plans for the 901 West Weed Street project back in 2015, when it was designed by RTKL. The new tower designed for CRM Properties by SCB is taller and slimmer than before. The new application for fabrication in this location has the implication of reduced obfuscation. While current design is 126 feet...
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...
New Chicago Office Building to be Aggressive on Being Passive
An ecological building idea born in the United States in the 1970’s, then refined in the colder regions of Europe in the 2000’s, is coming home to Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. The new building being put up by Gold Coast real estate developer Mark Goodman & Associates at 310 North Sangamon Street is going to be the largest “passive house” office building in the nation. “Passive house”...
Aon Center is the Latest Skyscraper That Wants to Take You For a Ride
If you want to “hang” at the Aon Center, 601W Companies is cool with that. As long as you do it in its proposed 22-person glass pod hanging off the roof. The New York real estate company has unveiled its $185 million proposal for turning a portion of Chicago’s third-tallest building into a tourist attraction. We’ve known since 601W bought the stoic skyscraper in 2015 for $173 million that it thought there was...
Aon Center’s Glass Elevator-to-the-Sky to be Unveiled Tonight
Glass as an amusement is a big thing these days. It seems to have started with that glass bridge over the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai reservation in Arizona. Now we have a glass slide at the top of the U.S. Bank Building in Los Angeles. The glass “ledges” at the top of the Willis Tower. The glass “tilt” mechanism at the top of 875 North Michigan. And now the Aon Center is getting in on the transparent...
The Residences at Addison & Clark Getting Ready To Play Ball
Baseball is back, and once again millions of people turn their attention to Chicago’s favorite ballpark: Wrigley Field. (Sorry Sox fans, it is.) Scores of Chicagoans move to Wrigleyville just so they can be within shouting distance of the friendly confines, even if they don’t have season tickets. Some people aren’t even that loyal to their families. For hard-core baseball lovers, or those who just dig the...
After 7 Years, Loop Residential Building Finally Hits Paper, Bridge to MDA
Things are finally coming together for the new residential building coming to 171 North Wabash in The Loop. We first reported on 171 way way way back in 2011, when it was the companion building to what is now called Experience 73, around the corner but still adjacent, at 73 East Lake Street. Experience ate a parking garage to build a 42-story residential tower, and 171 was going to eat a surface parking lot/parking garage combo to...
