I have bookmarked this 1/18/2018 news https://www.facebook.com/groups/1221...=CHRONOLOGICAL

601W bought the parking lot. But as far as Holiday Inn, I never heard the possible sale.

Back to 2015:

https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/...he-south-loop/
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...wellness-trend
https://beitlerre.com/development/un...elopment/dual/

there was proposal for new hotels on Wells between Ida B. Wells Drive and Harrison where the Hunter Building is sitting now. The hotel was intended to be a Holiday Inn Express+Staybridge Suites dual brand. But there was no further news after that. Maybe Post Office can bring this back to live? If that happens, the current Holiday Inn may go for sale.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/colum...outputType=amp


This is soooo fucking beautiful

Post office owners just bought more property close by.






https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...around-project

October 17, 2019 11:50 AM



Old Post Office developer eyes another big turnaround project



601W is upping its bet on the southwest Loop's renaissance with a deal to buy a sprawling Canal Street office building slated to be empty in a year.



As it prepares to welcome tenants to the Old Post Office after an $800 million-plus overhaul, developer 601W has lined up another big project just a block away.

The New York-based firm is under contract to pay around $67 million for the 575,000-square-foot office building at 801 S. Canal St., according to sources familiar with the deal.

The pending sale at roughly $115 per square foot tees up another bold bet on the southwest Loop for 601W, which set off a renaissance along the South Branch of the Chicago River by turning the mammoth Old Post Office into a modern office building and inking leases there with a slew of prominent tenants.

The sprawling building it is now poised to buy stretches almost a full city block along Canal Street between Polk and Taylor streets. It will soon be empty and in need of a face-lift. Chicago-based Northern Trust has leased the six-story property since the owners, a group now led by real estate investor Paul Gearen, developed it for the bank in 1990. But Northern Trust is moving out in October 2020 after its current lease expires, part of a consolidation of some of its downtown offices into space at 333 S. Wabash Ave.



That gives 601W a little less than a year's worth of rent to tide it over and decide what it wants to do with the building and the surface parking lot along its south end, which could also be developed, according to a marketing flyer for the property.

The building will serve as a bellwether for how hot the southwest Loop can get as tenants file into the Post Office and capital pours into a pocket of downtown that has labored to establish itself as a corporate destination.


...

Wow. That was a pretty glowing review from Blair. Pretty rare for him.


"what has transpired so far at 433 W. Van Buren St. is a near-miracle"

"The entrance serves as a warm-up for the ballgown-beautiful grandeur of the main lobby, a dazzling, soaring space outfitted with restored geometric lanterns, walls of fluted marble and gold mosaic tile, as well as decorative panels that illustrate the march of transportation advances (from pony express to airplane) that sped delivery of the mail. The lobby, which is open to the public, communicates a faith in government that seems lost today. Gensler and the Evanston firm of McGuire, Igleski & Associates handled this portion of the restoration with skill and sensitivity"

"What’s already compelling is the revival of this building, which, as recently as a few years ago, was considered an irredeemable white elephant. Now that the project has reached the milestone of taking in its first tenants, it seems as meaningful to Chicago as the transformation of industrial-era transportation infrastructure like elevated freight lines, docks and railroads into the green spaces of The 606, the downtown riverwalk and Millennium Park. "

was a good read :cheers:

makes me want to go see it for myself

The building is open tomorrow as part of OHC but will be closed Sunday.

A relocation from within the city but still good news for this development in and of itself

Staffing firm set to join Old Post Office party

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...t-office-party

318 N Carpenter
 

...wt....

^^ well that was uneventful, Harry ;)

Oct 19

^ If your EXIF time is correct... I was there about 30 mins before you.

PepsiCo confirms move to Old Post Office

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...ld-post-office

I believe The Post Office redevelopment has truly been impressive. I know some would disagree, but I would have liked to have seen the exterior redone to look like the exterior color of Willis Tower and other buildings in that area of like color. I think a darker- colored exterior on a building as massive as the Post Office in that location would have really helped to highlight that whole area. Nevertheless it has turned out to be very successful and an exterior redo probably would have been too cost- prohibitive.

Absolutely incredible how well this building looks and is filling up.

What do you mean paint black over all the wonderful limestone?? That would be a travesty. Or reclad the whole building in Cor-ten steel? That would be very expensive.

I really hope Canal street will be redeveloped south of the OPO and find a way to connect to the Clinton subway station

...and an absurd idea? :koko:

some would disagree?

SOME?

i'd be shocked if you could find even one single other person that would agree with your idea to strip the historic art deco OPO of its glorious limestone and re-clad it with black anodized aluminum panels like the sears tower.

i think we can safely file that one away under "WILDLY unpopular opinions".



this is all exactly as it should be:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/architectur...fice-web-1.jpg
source: https://openhousechicago.org/sites/s...o-post-office/

Of course you are right, I was talking about the aesthetic effects. I came out of Union Station recently and looking south and seeing Willis Tower and several other black-clad buildings nearby and it was very imposing. I am just saying a black-clad Old Post Office exterior redo would have been a great continuous of those impressive buildings.

Lol wtf?

Well, if any of the older plans had ever come to fruition, that called for partial demolition of the building, then I think some creative facade ideas would have been called for to delineate old vs new.

But fortunately, the needs of office tenants have evolved over the last 10-15 years, and now ENORMOUS floorplates are both very desirable and very rare (good luck building anything this big from scratch today). Once asshat Bill Davies kicked the bucket, the stage was set for 601W to do a pretty straightforward gut renovation without changing the footprint or massing of the building.

Give credit to Rahm too, he really went out of his way to get this project off the ground, from threatening eminent domain on Bill Davies to personally recruiting 601W to do the renovation after seeing what they did on Starrett-Lehigh in NYC - even though OPO is 7x larger than Starrett-Lehigh. This project should definitely be counted as one of his legacies to the city.

Does anyone have a clue when the outside riverfront hardscaping and landscaping is supposed to commence? That's the part of the renovation that I'm most excited to see completed.

I'm most interested in what will happen to the Sugar annex. Seems like such a waste to demolish what could be a very nice loft office space building.

Pepsi is moving in

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

Posted this morning on the previous page

Great to see this filling up, but I do wish that more of it was truly new to the city activity as opposed to relocations like Pepsi. There must be a lot of less nice office space emptying out.

Lol..no need to become hysterical. Its just a persons opinion about what they like. First, the Old Post Office redevelopment is fantastic, it is marvelous, it is the greatest thing to ever happen in Downtown Chicago. Having said that it is not sacrilegious for someone who loves Modern architecture over Art-Deco to visualize what they would have liked to have seen. Finally, if I am correct I believe the rough draft of four new towers of the previous proposal for the redevelopment of the OPO were black-clad supertalls. Black cladded bldgs seem to be popular in that area, that is all I am saying.

Hate to pile on skysoar, but the mere idea of painting limestone is suspension-worthy.

Lol...my last comment on this topic is I never mentioned black paint, but cladding. Even so I get your drift. I may have to suspend myself on my Post Office Development proposal. Even my wife, after she got home from work I mentioned my thought on the project to her, she looked at me like I was crazy and let me know, no chance of having any luck tonight. Oh well, great kudos to the development team that have brought great success to the Old Post Office redevelopment project.

tough but fair

The old PO is a great example of a classic US government limestone building that deserves to be restored and respected for what it was, and is.

On that note, does anyone know if there is still a thorough exterior cleaning in the works, it does still look a little grody.

no one is getting hysterical, you simply expressed a really strange and outlandish opinion, and people are strongly pushing back against it.

you had to have expected that.

you proposed re-cladding a spectacular limestone art deco edifice that is officially designated as a city of chicago historic landmark as well as being listed on the national register of historic places.

no one is going to agree with an opinion like that.

you might as well have proposed turning grant park into a giant oil refinery.

I'm reporting his post as hate speech :lynchmob:

Pepsi moving in puts the building at about 85% leased. That's no small feat for a 2.5 million sq ft building.

Lets not forget what we could of got.

https://images2.imgbox.com/a2/19/3eN8ba22_o.jpg

https://images2.imgbox.com/0d/81/V7w1UUrG_o.jpg

https://images2.imgbox.com/1a/05/kXRoQbBL_o.jpg

Maybe someday, the Post Office will sell the new post office building next door and then someone will turn that into offices too. Then there would be the Old old Post Office and the Old Post Office. Those towers next to the Post Office could still be built!

You mean like someone could raze it and build office towers there?

........how about a coal mine ? :D:D:D

Nice height, but we could do better design wise.

I imagine those train tracks will eventually get capped and built upon. In two or three decades.

I'm hearing rumblings of one of the food suppliers to Home Chef taking a large amount of space in this building for "manufacturing" ie cooking of Home Chef meals. Big if true!

Interesting. But, just for the record, there will be no "cooking". The kits come to you with the raw ingredients. There is certainly assembly and packaging involved, but no cooking as such.

^Home Chef is pre-cooked. Other options like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron are cooked entirely at home. Another tell tale is the largest grease duct I’ve ever heard of, 12’x12’, was recently installed for “future” use.

Home Chefs meal kit delivery is raw ingredients. Only their new "Heat and Eat" retail option is pre-cooked.

I'm getting hungry ! :D:D:D:D

Does anyone know when the food hall at the post office is going to open? I work near there and would like to eat there at lunch time.

That makes two of us. There's also construction happening on the west side of Union Station, where another food hall will go.

Union Station to build new food hall in long-vacant space

Has Phase 1 of this project started? I've herd a lot about this project and I don't know if it's cancelled, envisioned, or has started yet.

Lol where have you been? They pretty much leased the entire building and are already delivering space. Pretty incredible pace for a project of this size...

I know, I'm sorry for asking a dumb question. I just wasn't sure what had been going on because I've seen so many sources saying different things. Are they still doing the plans with the massive skyscrapers or not?