Yep - it sounds like these guys can do it right once Davis is out of the equation. The article says the acquisition should be complete towards the end of May and that they intend to invest "more than $250 million" in upgrades to the property.

Emanuel backs off in Old Post Office fight

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...t-office-fight

If anyone can do this its these guys



http://www.starrett-lehigh.com/



Karasick said his redevelopment of the Starrett-Lehigh Building, a 2.3-million-square-foot complex on Manhattan’s West Side, serves as a model for the Old Post Office. After buying the industrial property in 1998, he turned it into a cutting-edge office building, scoring leases with companies including Tommy Hilfiger and Martha Stewart Omniliving. He sold the property for $920 million in 2011.

“We look forward to doing the same type of thing” at the Old Post Office, Karasick said.

Will the current rfp's still go as scheduled and due in June?

Looks like they've started doing something to the building:
http://i.imgur.com/IlFnAGNl.jpg

They also have a CBRE sign up on the NE corner: "1,000,000+ Square Feet available"

I don't think they've closed the sale to the new owner yet, have they? I know they have until June 1.

Maybe fixing some of their numerous code violations that they have there.

^ I doubt that the seller would be doing that a mere few weeks before a sale. This would suggest that closing has already occurred, at least if significant work is happening.

That's exactly what they are doing. The building is a giant fire hazard that has to be dealt with every year

Here we go:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...512-story.html

Is anyone else getting deja vu from the image in the Trib article?

New rendering from 601W:
http://i63.tinypic.com/nd798y.jpg

Old rendering (2007) of the Walton Street Capital proposal:
http://i64.tinypic.com/hv6opg.gif

Gensler designed the 2007 proposal, maybe 601W just went back to them and tweaked the plan a little? Certain aspects of the design already seem dated. I can only assume much of the new rendering is simply a placeholder to illustrate the broad strokes...

"dated" is an understatement

^ Looks as if they are planning to do this, at least partially, on spec, perhaps with the hope that midway through rehabilitating the property they get a lease.

Maybe this is where McDonald's will land after all? Is Walgreens still a contender?

what exactly seems dated to you? the outdoor plazas arent amazing or anything from that crude rendering and could be tweaked. but generally speaking the real takeaway is that the building would largely be maintained and restored...so the lack of any exterior alterations is the best case scenario IMO. (rather than having everything chopped up or weird additions added).

I agree. Finally some serious preservation attempts happening on some good art deco instead of knocking the thing down or mutilating it! If restoring the building brings in enough people, the area around it looks keen for redevelopment. PLENTY of surface parking lots that need to GO!

Interesting thought about Walgreens. Gensler did a Post Office design study for Walgreens a while back. The latest rendering of the riverwalk has their name attached to it...

Chopped up and weird additions? The building is already a chimera of weird additions. You just don't notice it because they're all clad in limestone. I don't have any problems conceptually with deleting or demolishing parts of the building as shown in the 2007 rendering.

The only reason it's not being carved away this time is because 601W thinks they can lure Fortune 500 companies to the building based on its overwhelming floor plates. Quite frankly, I don't see why a successful company would want such a clunky behemoth as its public face...

This is primarily an office development, which means it is just as hard to get off the ground as any John Buck or Hines tower, but without the sex appeal and efficiency of modern architecture.

None of this seems to hold back the Merchandise Mart...

Appeals to different tenants in an entirely different (and much tighter) submarket. If you could transport the old post office to a riverside plot in River North it would have been converted a decade ago.

i actually wasnt aware it had additions already, but nevertheless im not sure how maintaining that makes this concept outdated. if sterling bay proposed the exact same thing you guys would all be going ga-ga

yea, and that submarket is no longer a bargain the way it once was. and these sorts of floorplates no longer exist there anyway. it may have converted a decade ago if it was in River North....but its indeed 10 years later so why would the time not be ripe to expand into other areas?

this building is literally a 5 minute walk from union station. if anything its more convenient than all the office space going up in fulton.

Like Fulton Market?

The post office needs at least a couple major anchor tenants to really get started. For all their similarities the Mart didn't start from zero.

Convenience weighted against neighbored amenities is a decision each tenant has to make based on their business and workforce. The amenities offered by the union station area and the fulton market area are dramatically different to say the least.

.

i work in Fulton and i can tell you its highly over-rated from an office worker standpoint. amenities? Lol. unless youre eating at Girl and Goat every day i dont see the big deal or what all the hypes about (actually, i can tell you: management likes that they get to brag that "we're located right by google!"...as if that matters or their luster is magically going to rub off on us just due to proximity. dosent really make a difference for workers or day to day life tho). its certainly nothing like the one-stop-shop that the loop is, and most lunch breaks i find myself treking back over the expressway anyway to get simple errands done.

we actually had Metra commuter employees quit when we made the move because of the trek over from the train station. a half hour walk in the middle of winter for older employees, esp through an area that dosent see the maintence upkeep the central loop does, is a deal breaker for a lot of people

being able to say "get off the train and youre at the office" is a pretty compelling selling point, esp if its a suburban company relocating downtown. and theres a blue line stop right there.

kind of surprised how pessimistic you are on this (i mean, not without just cause, its been empty for a while and will be a big undertaking. ill believe it when i see it too. but Fulton market isnt some nirvana in comparison)

Due to the size of the building I would imagine the amenities within it could very easily surpass that of any other building in the city. No, it might not have 20 restaurants within a block like in the loop, but it could very well have 10 restaurants inside of it. Plus a 3+ acre rooftop park + the riverfront plaza space? Not to mention that the neighborhood 'amenities' will certainly come once thousands of new patrons are in the area every day.

There are only two eras of buildings. The original brick 6 story warehouse building from 1921 that faces the river and the 1932 art deco building that surrounded it (and reclad the lower 2 floor of the 1921 building). The 1932 building is further split up by the north office block (the north 6 bays) which has different floor to floor heights than the rest of the facility, but otherwise it's pretty organized and contiguous, especially when viewed from the south, west, or north.

Some previous concept plans by Gensler opened up two large lightwells into the center of the building, which to me sounds more useful for office than hacking off the center of the top 5 floors (which was done when residential was proposed here in 2007).

I've seen this done intentionally by some people though most of the tenants fulton appeals to aren't corporate relos, even from within the city.

The post office makes sense for large corporate relos mores than organic office growth of newer companies or startups that tend to cluster. Given the increasing trend of the former I'm actually very optimistic about it's prospects in this cycle.

Imagination is about all the project has going for it until somebody starts actually spending money.

The Mart was already a successful center for showrooms and expo space long before tech companies started looking at it. It's cohesive and elegant architecturally, since it was all master-planned by Marshall Field II.

The Post Office? All it has going for it is large floorplates (which, as Ned pointed out, aren't even contiguous) and Metra/Blue Line access.

I still think the Post Office is a better site for one-of-a-kind land uses like a Chicago casino and rail terminal that really need the advantages of that site in a way that office does not.

and when are either of those things ever going to happen? or are we prepared to let it continue to rot away when no other serious proposals hav been brought forward

casino could just as easily go on former michael reese land or something similar. rail terminal seems pie in the sky at this point.

aaaaand William Davies just died

The post office needs deep pockets, and a 20 year commitment, not some scum flipping developer.

well. this has certainly been a news filled day on this subject.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...513-story.html

guess maybe he knew he would never be able to see this through, given the timing

601W is named after 601 West 26th Street (the Starrett-Lehigh building), which is very similar to the old Post Office (gigantic Art Deco office/warehouse building on top of train tracks). Who do you think would do any better?

Clearly Emanuel killed Davis to get him out of the way for this deal. Don't f#$@ with Chicago. He learned the hard way.

Agreed. And they also own the Montgomery Ward groupon building. They know what they're doing.

Happy Friday the 13th to him.

Wow, always sad to hear about a death. One can't help but wonder how it would complicate matters had he died before signing the closing papers. I guess we dodged that bullet

^ Yet we have no confirmation as of this moment of when exactly he expired. This was the very first question I had upon learning of his death. Official time of death and time of sale closing, por favor....

I see Rahm is on some Frank Underwood type sh!+

A lot of tacky talk here.

Has Trumpism infected SSP?

Its more or less a restoration project so dated is what I'd expect from a 1921 building, the Merchandise Mart is also dated.

Edit* I see someone else covered this point first. :haha:

Yeah, nothing would have happened under Davies.

Glad he sold it...

A casino at Michael Reese would be a terrible idea. That's bound to be a suburban auto oriented hellhole. At the Post Office you squeeze it all into one existing, reasonably urban-friendly building where tourists can get to it easily via taxi and walking, and you avoid creating the kind of giant sprawling fortress that the Detroit casinos are.

If you don't make it easy for tourists, then you're just cannibalizing the same sad sack population of chronic local gamblers that currently drives out to Aurora and Hammond.

As for the rail terminal, it's really a matter of setting aside parts of the ground floor for a Metra concourse and ticket counter. Not sure how that is pie in the sky when Union Station's northern platforms already have a second concourse at Madison.
The upper floors would actually be much easier to lease for offices with a direct indoor connection to Metra platforms like Citicorp Center has.

^^^ Gotta place the casino near the ghetto for maximum poor tax!

Maybe because its perfectly located on top of the Blue Line and both Merra Stations which is what actually matters to F500 companies.

Not really, the ownership situation with the Post Office has been the main hinderance. It's been owned only by the Feds and Davies, who was going to develop it again? Also, the superstructure alone in this building has $50-75/SF in value over new construction. That alone should make it competitive for corporates looking for value.

I think purchasing it for $130 million counts as "spending money"...

I agree with both about the Michael Reese site and
the usefullness of a train depot and/or casino.

The sad reality of it though is that that would require number of government agencies getting their act together and finding the funding mechanisms in a timely manner. Having a private owner waiting on such dysfunctional agencies to clear up their objectives and infighting may take many many more years. What private developer has time for that.

I always thought an Art Deco casino would be cool in the Post Office...

Just buying it isn't going to get leases signed. The new owner will have to be actually underway with significant renovation/restoration before any big companies are willing to sign on given the history.

Which is what their plan is, based on the information we have thus far. What is the problem?