no.

the original scheme from Davies with those super-tall skyscrapers was always an extremely pie-in-the-sky fever-dream.

those towers have't been a thing since Davies sold the property over 3.5 years ago, just before he passed away.

despite what various corners of the internet erroneously believe, they were never actual, serious proposals.

Here is a recent update on renovations (as of October). I think work on the rooftop, river walk, and tenant-specific build-outs remain:

http://www.chicagomag.com/real-estat...ost-Office/#/0

Right. I am curious if the entitlements for those towers are still in place. Does anyone know?

The entitlements still exist, but are somewhat diminished as Davies plan called for a large chunk of the post office to be removed. Since that didn't end up happening probably 1 million SF of the FAR previously shown as other towers is now used up by the post office itself.

It's still very possible we see a supertall here eventually as the developer is unlikely to forget they have a huge entitlement for more towers here.

Via the BMO webcam: After several months of nothing they seem to be resuming work on the OPO roof again - at least in the tiny section that is visible via the webcam.

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

https://i.imgur.com/D6MRv1w.png

Just about to say, Longest. Drilling. Ever. Hope there's no financial issues.

Post and images about Walgreens build-out:

http://www.sloopin.com/2020/02/a-loo...ns-office.html

Per the BMO Tower OxBlue cam, the visible portion of OPOs rooftop terrace is just about complete. Looks very nice :slob:


https://app.oxblue.com/open/clarkconstruction/underconstruction

I was on a CRE webinar with some of the project team today... really incredible stories like you often get in these big historic projects.

-Building is 80% leased up
-Rooftop is substantially complete and will open to the building tenants next week (7/1)
-No public access to the rooftop at first but a restaurant of some kind is planned - yet to start concept phase, probably 2022 opening at the earliest
-Ground-level food court by 16" On Center should be starting build-out this summer, including an outdoor plaza overlooking the river
-No firm plans to build a riverwalk at this time
-Work continues at the track level to reinforce and shore up the concrete structure
-Work on the 290/Congress tunnel should also start this summer

I meant to ask about the plaza areas along Canal, but I forgot... I assume these are on hold until the city rebuilds the Canal St viaduct.

Ok OPO i see you, you go girl!

https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/...tic-green-lid/

Randomly saw that earlier on ChiArch and it looks incredible! I wonder if the beige areas on the roof are intended as later phases, or if that'll just be green roof...hard to tell in the image if it's been planted already or not :shrug:

Yes, the eventual goal is to build a rooftop pavilion with some kind of restaurant... not sure who the operator will be, but it would make sense for 16" On Center since they are operating the food hall on Level 1. The beige areas appear to be gravel ballast. Supposedly the landscape also includes a lot of geofoam and topography, but you coulda fooled me seeing that aerial image.

Also forgot to mention, they bored a pair of tunnels under the river to get chilled water from the EnWave plant on Wacker. Pretty nuts.

Any timeline when their supposed to work on the riverwalk and is there a final design?

Re: the Tunnel, that is indeed nuts! Are you sure it's an actual tunnel that was built, or do you suppose they just used a horizontal drilling machine for the piping?

This would be the first new tunnel under the river that I've heard of in my lifetime. :shrug:

No and no. No discussion of a riverwalk at this time.

I believe the vehicle ramp from Van Buren down to track level is still needed, either by USPS or Amtrak... so any riverwalk would have to be built out into the river, and under the Congress bridge, at a pretty steep cost.

I'm guessing we'll have to wait until 601W decides what they want to do on the Sugar House parcel (the red brick building east of the OPO).

Probably the horizontal drilling machine, I'm guessing.

What exactly is this tunnel for? I must have missed this one...

Good omen or bad omen? (maybe tomorrow night I'll bring my tripod out there so I can do a better image stack...)

https://i.imgur.com/Po1xTdfh.jpg

full size: https://i.imgur.com/Po1xTdf.jpg

Had to squint a bit, but I can see the comet. Nice shot.

yeah not visible to the naked eye due to the light pollution, but I was able to find it by taking a few pictures until I saw it.

Are we admiring the dim comet or how lit up the Old Post Office is! It's come a long way. What a sight to behold :cheers:

Crains had photos of the completed rooftop from a recent article:

https://s3-prod.chicagobusiness.com/...3/IMG_9233.jpg

https://s3-prod.chicagobusiness.com/..._DSC01231.JPEG
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...e-rooftop-park
(sorry, always a paywall, just sharing link for reference)

The Sun-Times has an article too with even more images
https://chicago.suntimes.com/busines...-space-tenants

I love that they included an apiary! Gotta support the bees!

^ Never noticed the Chicago grid mural on the elevator shaft of 300 S Wacker. Hiding in plain sight for me.

Hmm, is this going to be visitable at OHC this year? If so, might be one of the first on my list...

Yes sir, and it was topic of conversation here in the General Developments when they were painting it. There's a red rectangle where the building is located. Essentially a 300' tall "you are here" map. Beats a big blank wall by a million. :cheers:

I don't think so. OHC is all self-guided and virtual this year, they will have driving/walking tours but you won't be able to go into any buildings.

This rooftop is technically outdoors, but I don't think they would be able to bring crowds up the elevators safely.

I saw a presentation by some of the project team, they did hint that there might be a public bar/restaurant opening up here in the next few years. IIRC they have reserved space for such a restaurant, you can see portions of the roof are still just gravel.

OPO gets a new tenant


Codal Moves Its HQ to Old Post Office Building, Plans to Double Headcount

https://www.builtinchicago.org/2021/...-office-hiring

Good news on the new tenants, especially with Uber/Uber Freight scaling back.

OPO is almost done with their riverfront plaza as well, which will allow outdoor dining for the food hall. That should be a nice spot to grab lunch once it opens!

i thought i was looking at renders, my god what an amazing job they did!

Stay in the burbs but as soon as i get my shot i'm going to be down there every weekend...

New building permit was just issued yesterday for Uber to build out their office space here to the tune of $55M estimated cost.

Floor 8: South (partial)
Floor 9: South (full)
Floor 10: Southeast (full)
Floor 12: North (full)

Their lease is for around 460K sq ft, but they put up 150K sq ft for sublease. Still building out 310K sq ft which is still pretty large. Definitely large enough for a few thousand people. According to a Sun Times article in February, Uber hasn't really changed their plans for Chicago which still means they want to hire a few thousand people

April 26

Gorgeous! Looks like a rendering :cheers:

It is gorgeous. Still anticipating what the outside public areas near the riverwalk and off Clinton will look like though. As well as what the long-term plans for the annex on the south side will be.

I would think that signed leases have surpassed expectations, I would hope there is no reason to cheap out on those areas.

Looks like an airport in Sim City, but the shots I've seen from the actual rooftop are much nicer.

Business Commuters Clamour For Airport Glamour!

Awesome shot Harry!

When is that craptastic suburban Holiday Inn going to bite the dust? It's demise seems to get closer every year... that land is too valuable to be 80% parking lot/20% exurban-style motel...

The Canal St-side plaza will need to wait until the city rebuilds the crumbling viaduct it sits on. Every year they say it will happen but it keeps getting pushed back. I think there is TIF money allocated from the Rahm days to pay for the landscaping part of the project, but it will be controlled and managed by the owners of OPO.

Speaking of tech jobs downtown, one of my engineers just got poached by Milwaukee Tools. I asked if he was moving to WI, and he said they’re opening up a new office in the OPO. I don’t know how many employees. Another win. Had that been reported?

I believe I read somewhere that Milwaukee Tool was opening some kind of engineering office here.

Also just bought a new impact driver and drill set from them last weekend and they are manufacturered in Mexico now instead of China. Big time win for their quality IMO and for the ongoing restoring of manufacturing chains to North America...

Has Chicago finally crossed the tipping point for attracting tech jobs? It feels like every week for the past 2 months there's been a relocation/branch announcement in Fulton Market/West Loop

What are you even talking about? Chicago has had a strong tech scene for decades. Comparing it to the Bay Area isn't really a reasonable comparison, but by almost any other measure Chicago more than holds its own when it comes to tech, and has for decades.

^ It depends:

If "tipping point" means has Chicago made any gains on other regions of the country, then the answer is, and probably always shall be, no.

If "tipping point" means does Chicago already have a lot of people working in tech? Of course, that never was an issue.

I'm guessing it has more to do with having a more diversified ecosystem within the industry with more options. Chicago area has had a lot of tech/IT for a long time but I don't think anyone can deny the last 8 or so years has seen some pretty big growth as far as diversification, number of companies, etc goes. My guess is that the poster is referring more to that. Chicago VC funding is already at around $4B this year too, which if I remember correctly would be on par with the LA area from a few years ago. At least from my perspective, Chicago right now looks much better for tech even if the number of tech workers in the area has been outpaced by other areas percentage wise.

also, what is "tech" anymore? is walmart any more or less "tech" than amazon?

if you consider software developers as the only true tech workers, those people are everywhere but yes there are a lot in the san fran bay area

I agree. The roles today and definitions today are even different than a decade ago. The amount of people and roles to pull this stuff off has grown a bit too. Product roles, for example, are also tech much of the time.

I personally take anyone who works on a tech product to be a tech worker no matter the company. I used to work for a stereotypical "tech company " but not anymore. My entire org, though, is larger than a lot of large tech companies. We have the same roles as a tech company, we use a lot of the same technology, doing a lot of the same things. I work with former employees of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, etc etc. We use a lot of the same methodologies, processes,, etc as them.. But how many people recognize us as "tech workers"? It's so sad it's funny. By the way we are hiring something like 250 tech workers in Chicago right now but alas, that doesn't make the news.

There's always been a bunch of tech workers in Chicago but it's more visible now because of the startup ecosystem and large increase of VC funding in a relatively short period of time. Ultimately this is a good thing to be diversified whether you can work in the financial industry, retail industry, at a startup, or an established tech company.

I am a "tech" worker.

I spend all day having to use a POS electronic medical record system that is clumsy and designed by dingleberries that I'm sure I'm 100 times smarter than, but because all of my data entry is done on this thing, and I spend more time doing this than talking to patients, I'm officially a "tech" worker :D

^ at this point you should say you're working a double-shift with how much trouble machines have given you ;)

Back to "tipping point", I was referring to the city core itself being the site of attracting jobs. Metro Detroit has the 2nd highest concentration of tech jobs, next to Silicon Valley. Even though a lot are in automotive and other jobs that wouldn't traditionally be considered "tech", many outsiders are surprised by the abundance of jobs in computer science and engineering. However, most of these jobs aren't in Detroit itself, so growth has occured in the burbs. It's only been the past decade Detroit is starting to witness this tipping point of hires and expansions being in the city itself. Consequentially, investors that had otherwise stayed clear of Detroit are becoming confident with investing in the city, now that they're realizing the metro has a large ecosystem

I was wondering if Chicago has crossed a similar tipping point, where companies and investors that wouldn't have even considered us are now rethinking their decision. The amount of VC funding Chicago has attracted seems to be a sign of that, but are there any other markers that might indicate this

Great question. I would add the "growth in residents with at least a bachelor's degree" and "growth in residents making $100k+ with head of household under 45."

1. In 2016, 38.5 percent of the city’s population 25 or older had at least a bachelor’s degree, a jump from 29.3 percent in 2006, according to the American Community Survey. Crain’s reported that that increase is higher than the country’s other four largest cities and is more than twice the national increase of 4.3 percent.
   
2. Between 2010 and 2016, the city of Chicago gained more households in a key category—total income of more than $100,000 with the head of household under age 45—than any city in the country except for far larger New York, according to newly analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data.

Yup. In the case of Chicago, a lot is in financial/banking services, insurance, consulting, etc. That can actually be a very good thing as creating the tech is just one part of the equation. The other part is the actual business ideas, management, marketing, execution, etc. As a tech person, I feel like I've grown a lot more in terms or being able to run my own company because of my role in a non tech company to be completely honest. I did not get that in my other roles at tech companies as much. I think a lot of people in my same boat CAN create for more "talent" for startup and new company creation. Chicago in this regard isn't that much different than NYC but NYC is far ahead in this whole startup thing and what not.

By the way in 2019, the LA area took in $7.8B in VC funding. Thru the first 6 months of 2021, Chicago area took in $3.9B and some change. Who knows if that same velocity will hold in the 2nd half of the year but the pace for Chicago could set it equal to what LA was at in 2019. Who knows if it'll even come close but we'll see, and what 2022 has in store. But when you think about it, it's actually potentially amazing. Chicago area thru the first 6 months basically outraised, in publicly known deals, what all of 2020 did by about $1B. The vast majority of these companies, by the way, are located in the city proper.

The thing about "tech" is that the public is really only intune to what they are using. From that perspective z having the Facebook, Apple and Google of the world there is a good thing for attracting even more talent. However, there's a lot of good talent in most of the major metro areas who have a lot of economic activity that requires, these days actual tech (i.e. finance, insurance, retail operations like Wal Mart, medical, etc).

By the way, Lightfoot recently led a coalition of CEOs and others to try and get companies to open in Chicago even though some have been a little. A little page out of the books of mayors like Rahm. Let's see if it's at all successful.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...ce-lands-cisco

August 13, 2021 08:00 AM AN HOUR AGO

Old Post Office lands Cisco

In a deal that's been two years in the making, the IT giant is leasing about 135,000 square feet.

A.D. QUIG

Cisco still exists?