Chicago Architecture Firm Happy to Not Be Needed Today
While you were sequestered in your micro apartment exchanging accusing stares with your cat (she totally ate the last Yoplait), the boffins down at bKL Architecture have been fighting the good fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. And now their part is done. The Loop designers of glassy things that scrape the sky have completed their mission of banging out protective face shields with a stable of 3D printers. Face shield production at...
Gensler-Designed Plan for 1200 West Carroll Hits City Hall
San Francisco architecture firm Gensler doesn’t do a lot of work in Chicago, but we’ve been a fan of the blueprint boffins ever since we launched our first architecture web site way back in 1997. Back then, Google hadn’t been invented yet, and we were in a city littered with Gensler designs; so we learned to appreciate its affinity for easily-relatable facades and its apparent distaste for parking podia. December...
Michigan Avenue Eyesore to be Replaced by Homes and Hotel Tower
The northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Place has never been very much. In fact, its glory days were probably before there was a Chicago, when it was the reedy home to minnows, snails, and the occasional soggy moccasin lost in the mud. Now it looks like the old brick warehouse-turned-office/retail building that squats on that corner today will make way for a 523-foot tall skyscraper designed three blocks away by bKL...
Lincoln Yards Public Green Space Almost Ready to Open
The first piece of the Lincoln Yards promise is now a reality. One you can experience in a little over a week. Fleet Fields is part of the open space commitment Sterling Bay made when the city gave it permission to turn a former steel mill into a $6 billion live-work-stay space on the Chicago River between Lincoln Park and Bucktown. The location of Fleet Fields (formerly Lincoln Yards South Park) in the Lincoln Yards master plan...
Two More Office Buildings Coming to Fulton Market Area
The locations of 1000 West Carroll (left) and 345 North Morgan (right) (Via Apple Maps) Sterling Bay has pulled enough rabbits out of its hat to fill a warren. But Tuesday, it’s going to reach into its homburg again and feel around for a couple of more hares. That’s when the developer will talk to the public about what it plans to build at Morgan and the Metra tracks, down the street from its West Town headquarters. March...
Holy Foods: World’s Best Supermarket Breaks Ground in Downtown Chicago
Why are we so excited about a groundbreaking for a new supermarket in downtown Chicago? It’s not like it’s a pre-Kroger Mariano’s. It’s just Whole Foods: the hallmark of pre-recession soccer mom conspicuous consumption that jumped the shark long before it was munched up by Amazon.com in a cloud of Escalade yoga pants and free range kale chip sippy cups. April 2019 rendering of One Chicago (Courtesy of Goettsch...
TIF Tiff Tips With Politics Unusual Greening Lincoln Yards, The 78
Unless you’ve been hiding underground with the daffodils for the last six months, you’re aware that there has been a battle royale going on in the storied corridors of Chicago City Hall. Real estate developers on one side, community groups on another, opportunists mugging for the TV cameras, and politicians both outgoing and incoming taking shots where they can. It’s been like one of those black-and-white cartoon...
Another Hotel+Residential Tower Wants to Squeeze in On Michigan Avenue
It’s been almost two years since we first showed you the renderings someone dropped in our tip line of a potential new skyscraper for 300 North Michigan Avenue. Now it looks like those pictures were the genuine article. March 2019 rendering of 300 North Michigan Avenue 300 NMA will kill an unremarkable brick building kitty-corner from Michigan Plaza. It used to house Chicago’s most depressing Walgreens, and a few offices...
Lincoln Yards Passes Zoning, Finance Is Next
There’s an expression the kids used to use that goes, “Save the drama for your mama.” Chicago City Hall must have been full of mothers today when city council’s Zoning committee voted to approve the $6 billion Lincoln Yards project. Rendering of Lincoln Yards (Via Sterling Bay) The drama bubbled up from the minutiae of parliamentary procedure. The short version is that when 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman...
Controversial Lincoln Yards Development Hours Away From Zoning Vote
One of the most controversial development projects in recent Chicago history is scheduled to go before city council’s Zoning Committee Thursday. What happens at City Hall could determine if the $6 billion Lincoln Yards project goes from beset to beleaguered. Diagram of the January 2019 Lincoln Yards plan Even before Sterling Bay unveiled its plans to redevelop the industrial zone formerly occupied by the A. Finkl & Sons...
