You are exactly right on why the bus station could not be modified so soon after construction. The current PD only leaves less than 500,000 sf allotted for the bus station sub area, which if the bus station ever does get redeveloped in the future, that would result in only a modest tower, or there would need to be a new or modified PD.

November 5, 2019













November 8, 2019

The OPO from that angle :yes:

Excavators working today -

https://i.imgur.com/CV93qKl.jpg

Nov 8



reduce re-use ReCycle - concrete crusher


Nov 22

^ so the old garage is now completely down.

what are the odds for caisson rigs showing up before Xmas?

has anyone been talking to a little birdy lately?

From the camera it looks like one already has rolled on site. its red

what camera?

link?

Here's the webcam:

https://app.oxblue.com/open/clarkcon...erconstruction

^ thanks for the link. :tup:

i'm not seeing any caisson rigs on site.

it still looks like the Heneghan Wrecking show at the moment.

Just realized that a great view ofvthe circle construction as well, until the tower blocks it.

At this rate, the tower will finish first.

November 27, 2019

https://i.postimg.cc/jjnNcskJ/320-South.png
Source

Spyguy always comes through for an early Christmas present. I think it looks sharp, figuratively and literally.

If Goettsch is involved, we don't need to worry about the glass.

Side note: I cannot get over how gorgeous that white terracotta building is just west of this site.

Ha, it keeps drawing my eye as well. Beautiful.

You're probably aware that some forum members dislike the recent string of blue glass towers all looking similar?

Can you imagine architecture enthusiasts 100 years ago complaining about every midrise/skyscraper built with either limestone and terracotta?

off topic posts moved to the general discussions thread

please continue the discussion there: https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/sho...d.php?t=208431

Wait...when did this get a height bump. It's only 12 feet but I don't remember hearing about it or seeing any diagrams yet.

Edit: thank you, Steely

i was perusing some stuff over at the CTBUH's skyscrapercenter website and saw that they had this one listed at 727'.

as the 715' figure we originally had listed was a super-preliminary rough height estimate, i'm assuming that someone over at the CTBUH has seen something a little more specific/detailed height-wise.

That mockup looks awesome, this'll be a good tower

^ Great, unsurprising news.

I would assume this might be a ~$650-700 mil tower or so.....

I found a Trib article, linked-to below, from last year where Rahm (of all people) reportedly stated it to be a $900 mil project. That figure seems substantially too high.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/colum...210-story.html

for 1.5 million square ft I though this building would be taller myself...alot of cites have there tallest office building cracking 900ft with this amount of square footage...i guess Chicago just prefers there thicker bigger floor plans in office towers as opposed to height.

In a city where 900 ft would be a new tallest, a builder may go the trophy route. But at that location in Chicago, with Sears right there, it’s hard to be noticed. Better to be economical than flashy.

So when you say a lot of cities you mean NY, LA, Philadelphia, Houston Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland and Dallas, right? Haha. j/k :cheers:

^^^You see... This is the type of announcement I need for 1000M. Not what the developer says.

This is 100% the answer. Form follows function here thanks to Sears and Hancock being the King and Queen

forgot Charlotte and OKC ;)

Perhaps that $900 million figure included the rehab to the headhouse and building out the space and adding the one floor for the hotel.

it's important to remember that there are only 7 office towers in the US (outside of NYC) that have occupied space above 900'.

1. sears tower - chicago
2. aon center - chicago
3. US bank tower - LA
4. chase tower - houston
5. wells fargo - houston
6. salesforce - san francisco
7. columbia center - seattle

that's it outside of NYC. every other office tower in the nation that stretches above 900' uses spires or other rooftop embellishments to get there.

my point? 900+ vertical feet of occupied office levels is extremely rare in this country.

back in the late '80s boom, we saw 3 big office towers go up in chicago that ranged from 961' - 1,007' (franklin center, 2 pru, 311 S wacker), but all of them achieved their great height with spires and other roof top ornamentation. all 3 of them have occupied heights of just 820' - 843'.

these days in chicago, developers are not too keen on spending money on those kinds of height-boosting roof-top embellishments for bragging rights, so we end up with flat-roofed stuff like river point, 150 N riverside, 110 N wacker, BMO, and salesforce which really aren't a great deal lower than those late '80s office towers from an occupied height perspective.

in the entire history of chicago, only sears and aon truly stand out from the crowd of office towers for their incredible heights of occupied office space. office towers above ~850' just don't seem to pencil out in chicago, unless you stick a big giant pole on top of it.

BMO Harris Bank parent to cut 5% of workforce in cost-savings move, potentially affecting hundreds of Chicago-area employees
https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...lyq-story.html

A few roof-top embellishments here and there wouldn't hurt..just saying..lol..

Could be indeed. That article specified the office tower, however possibly by mistake. $900 mil seems about plausible for both.
Really looking forward to the remainder of the Union Station restoration and hotel renovation/expansion - what a great project.

IIRC, in another article on the cuts, around 400 Chicago jobs were referenced. I read this as little more than a routine, relatively run-of-the-mill corporate consolidation.

Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte is 871' and Devon Energy Center in OKC is 844' (Wiki)

There will be a new member of the 900 footers when 99 Hudson Street in Jersey City wraps up next year. The club must have been on it's radar as it clocks in at exactly 900'.

This is a really nice post Steely :tup:

Really cool to see in live time, how the site is progressing! ;)

Site looks pretty cleared out. Drills any day now I would presume?

Hmm, what's going on at Van Buren and Canal this morning? Anyone?

https://app.oxblue.com/open/clarkcon...erconstruction

https://i.imgur.com/Qrmzsvv.png

^ looks like it might be soil testing.

with a former parking garage sitting on the piece of land, they might have a fair bit of soil testing to do before the caisson rigs start drilling.

Ah good point. Hard to do testing under a parking garage. Was hoping they'd roll right into drilling. Hopefully they just take a quick dip, lol. :haha:

We don't have to guess there is a second construction cam for this project that is much closer to the action at the same link.

Feel like such a doofus. Thanks! I think that's newish... Plus OPO rooftop construction too. And Tokoyo Inn! :tup: https://app.oxblue.com/open/clarkcon...erconstruction

https://i.imgur.com/FLFtZwZ.png

Just checked the webcam... banana time??

^ the new piece of equipment looks like it might be a pile-driver.

perhaps for site perimeter piling?

The same vertical rigs are used by other contractors for caisson work, haven't seen RevCon use one for caissons yet, but generally the caissons are sunk, the piers installed, and the caissons removed before the sheet pile starts.

^ i was thinking that it might be for some kind of pile driving because i didn't see any drill bits, caisson sleeves, or rebar cage assembly on site, but there are a couple of long wide flanges laying nearby, so........

The 12:04 shot appears to show an excavator moving a (modest) belling bit.