Hmm looks like a possible road block.

Downtown Skyscraper Could Hit the Skids Because of Feds

^ Nah....

They were merely exploring this - at some point in the past (perhaps it's still under consideration) - as a small piece of the financing, afaik, and were certainly not depending on it. Not a big deal to have to go fully 'conventional' and in fact in imo likely preferable. That being stated, I've heard there may be a bit of a delay from a spring groundbreaking as there has to my knowledge been some shifting of the decks as far as the hotel flag(s). Nothing definite I can share at the moment......(except that one or both of JDV and Tommie are now gone).....my guess is it won't be too long before those i's are dotted and we have some announcements on this one.

The Sun-Times article does bring light some of the major problems with EB-5. I've always been skeptical of it for multiple reasons.

At any rate, I have to also add that the Chicago Architecture Blog has some jacked-up 'reporting'. They definitely occassionally have some great render reveals and some nice updates and reveal some detail that's newsworthy, however when it comes to interpreting and analyzing and characterizing, etc......well, I've been going to their site weekly for at least a year or two now, and critical thought in general isn't their strong suit, suffice it to say.............

........and then of course in the undiscerning world of today's internet echo chambers, I see that Curbed picked up the CAB 'story' here and ran with a similar idiotic headline....

...

I'll ask around. I've been wondering the same thing. Wanda might have pushed it back.

Might have to be a bit more patient than that - just cause there's been no news at all on this in a long time. It will happen though.

I played golf on that short course in 1995. Best city golf setting ever. (I'm not a golfer, just took swings with the clubs and swigs of some beers...):cheers:

I've heard things are on track with this project, going through the approvals process. I guess the financing trouble rumors were wrong.

Sweet, thanks for sharing

Good news - thanks for doing the digging and sharing. Yeah, those 'rumors' were never anchored in any sort of reality....see my post above - they revolved around the gimmicky, faddish and foolish EB-5 visa program, which hopefully will be tightened up dramatically some point soon.......also, I doubt the delay has anything at all to do with Wanda, as others have speculated. Plan was and is to have this one launch first - and by considerable margin.......Magellan and partners have the capacity - and the market timing at their back - to pull it all off....

So, other than the obvious question of what the hotel flags will now be, my question is: What does this one need to go through for approval? Is Reilly going to demand that it gets grouped in with Wanda and other changes that are necessary for an amended overall LSE PD (he alluded to this - not regarding 'O' specifically of course - at public Wanda meeting a couple months back), or can it get through before that process happens through administrative changes alone? I hope the latter, because if the former, that is likely - and most certainly will be going forward - at least one cause of continued delay with this project.....

Sorry to post this with no construction news, but BKL has a really nice rendering here.

http://bklarchitecture.com/wp-conten...ure_2015-2.pdf

^ Thanks for posting. Hadn't seen that doc yet. This one is a bit on the frustrating side waiting for.......I just wonder why (if it's indeed the case right now still) why Magellan can't nail down its hotel flags for this project.......there is no shortage of hotels brands looking to expand or plant a flag in downtown Chicago......further, LSE is in a little bit of a strange point right now - and it has been for the past 1-2 years......that being, it's an odd point in the cycle to not have any resi and/or hotel projects under construction in this development.....I mean, how long has it been since Coast has been completed - or even since it reached 90-95% occupancy? If you're Magellan, you can't be exactly pleased with yourself that the period between delivery of Coast and the delivery of the next project after that (obviously not counting GEMS here) - which still figures to be this one (not Vista) - will be, like, maybe 5 years?? In a big expansion cycle?? Trust me, that's not a good result, and for me it's a bit of a head-scratcher, quite frankly.....

Site "O" did come up several times last evening at the big Vista Tower community meeting. Unfortunately nothing really new or revealing.

I was correct in thinking that somehow "O" was part of the changes related to Vista and overall LSE PD that will go to Plan Commission/City Council starting next month......apparently a little height allowance is being shaved off "O" to allow for a little extra at Vista. I think 680' or so was allowed at "O".......hopefully they are only going to go down to 640' or so here, and bare minimum I'd say 600'.....anything below that would just seem silly to me at this particular location........also mentioned was that there will be a public vertical connection added in the form of an elevator from Upper Columbus level down to LSE park level at parcel "O"

Still, frustrating and disappointing that Magellan seems to be - for no good reason, at least from a market standpoint - spinning its wheels a bit with this significant and important development.........who knows - perhaps after LSE PD changes go through the entitlement process, this one might also see movement by spring '16??

One other thing I want to stress: Magellan continues to claim that they are not going back for more overall square footage at LSE. They continue to assert that they are going to keep it to an additional 2.7 mil. sq ft. (after Vista's 1.6 mil. sq ft). My guess is that "O" would be 700-800k sq ft total.....and that would leave 1.9-2 mil sq ft for the remaining residential towers at the E end/NE corner of LSE...............I'm not convinced they want some sort of trophy tower at the NE corner - I could be wrong of course - but if they do, I do not see any other scenario other then Magellan needing to go back for a PD amendment and get more sq ft at that time - and thus going directly back on their repeated word this year.............if this is really their plan, then why would they be so adamant right now that they are not going to be asking for an increase? It's not as if the public has been pressuring them on that issue (at least as far as what has been visible to me).............that's why I maintaining I think it's at least 50% as far as probability there is not going to be some sort of trophy/supertall/focal point at the NE................on the other hand, there's also, I suppose a chance they could design some sort of very slender, very tall building for that corner............

One wonders why anything less than a supertall would even be considered for the site. And I'd hope going out with a whimper (relative to potential) would be frowned upon by those in office.

Sam's right. ^^ it's a planned development. they are grandfathered, but they don't want any chance of getting hit with things like the affordable housing requirement if they increase the number of units beyond what's already been approved. So they get around that by chopping part of one building off and sticking it on top of this one. Instant height with no possible penalty

They might be throwing caution to the wind for a couple of reasons:

1, just not worrying about being called out a few years down the road, and

2, not having to answer too many questions about what might be blocking Vista's views in the future

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I think their current strategy makes perfect sense.

It could take another 15-20 years for them to be ready for the NE parcel. At that point they could just sell it to somebody else and let them worry about upzoning, affordable requirements, etc. They will get their money out of LSE one way or the other.

Furthermore I'm not that convinced that the NE parcel is all that desirable anyway. At least I personally wouldn't want to live there.

I buy a condo in a well-designed architecturally significant supertall with guaranteed lake/river views for eternity. But that's just me... :shrug:

Doubly true for the rich who prioritize the view over the inefficient location (with respect to accessing the whole city easily - half of your vicinity is water), and the same applies to hotel clients who are provided amenities and where the location is more desirable from a tourist's eyes.

there needs to be an el stop in the new east side area and at navy pier, and the park, and the museum campus.
we should work at removing buses as much as possible.

A few billion $... and done.

...

Remain. Height for site O was originally about 800'.

Look up The Loop Connector project.

I will bump this 2.5 year old thread because of Hydrogen's post in the

CHICAGO | Highrise Projects & Construction, v7



Certainly interesting news.

what's the likely ballpark height calculation based on what's been released

Well the way the other diagram in the Chicago Highrises thread showed the building sizes relative to lot and with this having 600+apartments and 600+ hotel rooms I could see it being over 700+ feet, especially if it as thin as it appeared. Would be very surprised if it was bigger than 900 feet.

The notice from the Alderman's letter stated that Parcel O will include up to 640 residential dwelling units and two hotels with up to 626 keys. The original proposal from 2014 or 2015 had a count of 574 apartments and 684 hotel rooms. Seems like the new version will be slightly taller but not much more than the original.

Which is crazy (and a bit of a shame) given how many units and rooms that is.

I know, right? Like, how big are those apartments going to be? And the hotel rooms? Optima II (AKA Signature) has about 500 apartments but appears to be much bigger than this thing which somehow crams in an addition 600 hotel rooms. What kind of origami is going on here?

Recall that the Marquee at Block 37 was able to fit 700 units for a 400 ft tower. It wouldn't be too difficult to image a 700 ft tower with 640 units and 626 hotel rooms.

^ Yea but Marquee takes up like a city block ...this site seems somewhat snug?..I would love to see something over 800 ft here...its definitely doable with those number of units ...hopefully some type of pinnacle rooftop would be nice break for a change.

The previous proposal was 60 floors with 574 apartments and 684 hotel rooms and now we're getting a proposal that is "as many as 640 residential units and 626 hotel rooms." I'm guessing 65 floors or less.

The size of the floor plates is really what matters here. If they take up the whole site on these floor plates you are correct, but the leaked mock-up of the building sites implies it make take up less of the site than the previous proposal for site O

Agreed, but the economics of going very tall and skinny wouldn't make much sense here. It's not like it's going to have amazing views -- the site is pretty boxed-in.

They could justify going tall if they wanted more units to have a view of LSE park, since the other 3 directions are going to be hundreds of feet of sheer wall. This wouldn't matter for the hotel as much as it would for the apartments of course. Assuming the service corridor between the Lancaster and North Harbor Tower/Parkshore was preserved, there would be some lake views as well from that vantage. Such views could command higher leases, which could make building taller more cost effective. This is all speculative, of course.

^ But they aren't......I think this tower will still definitely be less than 700', which is fine. Most important is the density. This is a dense - and appropriately so - project. Over 600 apartment units and over 600 hotel rooms? Yes, please.

I just hope this one is planned for this cycle still. I've been very curious what's taken so long for Magellan to get going on this one.......they easily could have started 1, 2, 3, or 4 years ago, and it would have been a smashing success.

With the limited views at O why are they putting the density here instead of the lots with WAY better views? Doesn't make much sense to me.

But it makes total sense. The lots with the best views will command the highest prices per square foot as hotels, rentals, and condos. This lot is closest to the rest of the city, the convention spaces, and has the worst views. It's going to be ideal for a large number of hotel room keys and small, affordable (ish) apartments.

^ Location. Location. Location. O is the best-located parcel in LSE for very high density.

Also, I think you may be conflating density and height - at least to an extent....

It makes sense to keep the hotel there but i think they would be better off to increase each of the other buildings density and height, nothing huge. Also, make some of it condo. I would think you would find it easy to find people who want to own at those other lots. But whatever...as long as it looks nice i do not really care. I just feel those other lots are not being planned to their full potential.

At the risk of going too far off-topic, I get the feeling a lot of members of this site played a LOT of SimCity 2000 as kids. Or play its far more complex, graphically-enhanced version today.

I know I did, even Sim City Classic. I play the real life Sim City today doing little developments of my own. Everyone who played Sim City wants to build the biggest skyscraper on earth.

Cities: Skylines is now all the rage. Much improved version of that game, and absolutely my guilty pleasure when I have time.

Anyway, back to the building at hand, I am finally understanding why the density would be slated for this site instead of the of ones along the lake. Still kind of bummed we didn't get a supertall and a nice open park in that remaining lot, but obviously that would have been much less economical.

Updated rendering via Curbed: https://twitter.com/curbedchicago/st...54226818580482

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEaRXxuWAAAqKnU.jpg
Curbed Chicago

2 more from David Matthews of DNAInfo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEaRwRWWAAA7rna.jpg:large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEaRkEkXcAA1sOY.jpg:large

^^^ kind of reminds me of Lowes with the serback balcanies.

Doesn't seem much different from the original proposal

^ So wait im confused...is this the twin tower that was mentioned?..I thought there were 4 buildings to be shown during this presentation...Feel like only seen 3??:shrug:

http://i63.tinypic.com/2pru5ut.jpg

Note that they've visually separated the two hotels and the apartments. Above the podium, the part with the distinct lines on the left is one hotel, the part with the distinct grid is another, and then the apartments are the bits with balconies above that. Also, a little hard to tell, but the apartment part sticks out over the hotel part on the west and east.

EDIT: See below for details.

http://i67.tinypic.com/2mhzzsx.jpg

There are three on the corner lot and one on Block O. Two of the buildings on the corner lot look similar (and similarly unmemorable).