http://leblow.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...mery-Burns.jpg
_

^So true

It's great news that he finally wants to sell the thing, but it's crummy that he's trying to hold out for a huge profit. Sterling Bay is probably the best possible buyer for the building, and he turned down their $150M already. Anybody willing to pay more than that for it would have to be as crazy as Davies.

There needs to be a use it or loose it law for assets of the wealthy. Great reward should involve great risk.

Is the Old Chicago Main Post Office project dead? Because some web sites say that construction on phase 1 of 3 has begun.

If what you mean is the prospect of multiple new construction towers on land adjacent to the post office building, that was never - ever - EVER!! :hell: - NEVER!!!!! - a real project to begin with - that was the English (or is he Scottish?) schmuck who owns the site (or is the real schmuck Danny Solis, Ald-Dumbassville?) trying to increase the value of his asset for eventual resale.......nobody who fell for that 'project' can claim they were not properly warned of the scam, from the very beginning......

well , that's not good news, but I hope Chicago will get something going, someday, we are loosing to New York fast. Old post office project dead, the spire is gone, only Wanda Vista looks like for now it will be here in few years.

^ This thread is for intelligent, sophisticated discussion. Weird supertall-obsessed fanboys (it's like one of those odd Asperger's interests or something), there may not be all that much here for you........now, let's get back to keeping it 'classy'.....

it's not good news.

it's not bad news.

it has never been news at all.

the fantasy of building 2,000' towers around the old post was just that: F-A-N-T-A-S-Y

we've already gone over this again and again. it was never "alive", so how can it now be "dead"?

May i suggest in the future, please read the previous few pages of a thread. That will help mitigate the abuse you take from certain "classless" armchair bullies on this thread.

Why is it bad he's obsessed with supertalls? This is a skyscraper forum the many times I've checked.

Supertall buildings are the reason Chicago's skyline is what it is.

NY is a much bigger city than Chicago where there is much higher demand and less space for everything so that's no surprise. Aside from Wanda, Wolf point and the spire site (Related's plan) are the -potential- supertalls. Perhaps the Jeanne Gang project will go through but from what I've heard it's dead. But don't quote me on that.

Hope that helps.

OK... El Zap. You've opened the door. Tell us what you know. But let's continue the discussion on the Wanda thread.

It's not a supertall forum. There are these people that jump around from city to city just looking for these tallest buildings. We need a new prominent website for you guys (I mentioned recently there used to be one called World's Tallest that I followed when I was a kid and thought this was actually important stuff) that will siphon you superheight fanboys off so we can get back to business and keep the conversation at a certain level of sophistication. A simple wish for the New Year, I suppose!

Do you really think he knows anything? Just a supertall fanboy passing through. Nothing of consequence here.....

It is an architecture forum which INCLUDES supertalls. If that is what interests a particular person who are you to pass judgement? Or now instead of just your constant whining about pomo are we supposed to suffer your opinions on those on the forum also?

Counter point, the person in question has littered the Chicago threads recently with little more than references to supertalls and the in-his-head only supertall arms race between cities. It is never well reasoned and entirely noise.

Also worth noting, if you are not a fan of particular commenters on this forum, you can always choose to hide their comments in your account settings.

What is the Jeanne Gang project? i only know of the Wanda Vista that she designed. is it the same?

Despite my dislike of some of certain peoples posts...OCCASIONALLY he has insightful opinions or comments. Besides, if one just chooses to see what he likes or wants to hear you will never learn anything. Much better to know as much as possible even if i do not agree. Then develop a more educated opinion myself later. But thanks for the handy tip, may need to look at what other options are in there now!

Yeah. I mean, in Sam's defense, those kinds of comments really debase the level of dialogue in the Chicago threads. Feel free to give an opinion/ask a question like that, but don't be surprised by a) a non-response (some people get really upset when no one indulges their easily Googled queries) or b) blowback, which also constitutes an opinion worthy of expression. Sam's wit can be a bit acerbic at times, but I choose to be more impressed than offended by how well he expresses it.

I agree. Perhaps we could open a speculation subsection as well and divert all the wet dreams from the likes of Onn there. Real information is what I come to skyscraperpage for

Can't say I particularly missed this project after its cancellation... Don't get me wrong; this location would be great for some sort of significant project, but supertalls in this area would seem out of place, and throw off the balance of the skyline.

True. Also true. Flase. Nonsense.

it was just a vision really.

^ Yes - there was no cancellation of anything here. Cancellation by definition means that there was an actual project (meaning the supposed new construction elements) to begin with......as we've discussed over and over again, that was never the case here.....

True, but it would be a good place for some potential large tower someday.

all the growth is north and west of there, unfortunately for them

Exactly, this is why the Downtown Service zoning is so toxic. It's just like PMD zoning, irrationally suppressing the value of land for some kind of fairy tale ideal. Instead of dense mixed use development we have abandoned factories in the PMD. Instead of dense mixed us development we have big box retail in DS districts.

I think a large part of why the Post Office has taken so long to develop is that there is literally nothing South of there except parking lots full of delivery vans and some marginal big box retail. There's nothing of value on the other side of the Post Office worth developing towards. It's not like the wastelands that used to be Cabrini, or the near West Loop, or River North where you know that eventually that area is going to connect to an attractive residential neighborhood like West Loop or Lincoln Park. All you get if you go South of the Post Office is miles of DS garbage and then depressed neighborhoods on the South Side after that. DS zoning is a cancer on this city just like PMD's.

yes

I would have typed all that if I weren't too lazy

The major impediment is just the sheer size and scope of the project. This is what TIF districts were meant for.

Just turn it into a giant parking facility..it would stop all the traffic from the Ike from coming into the loop looking for parking! 8)

Except, you know, Pilsen, University Village, Bridgeport, and Chinatown. There's plenty to connect to, if the zoning were changed. I would not call them "depressed" just because they are not filled with white professionals. There's nothing wrong with genuinely middle-class neighborhoods.

I don't necessarily mind the DS zoning or even the concept of PMDs, just the inflexibility the city has shown in accommodating new growth through rezoning (witness The Maxwell, whose residential units were canned by city planners). Goose Island should probably remain a manufacturing zone, accommodating office and light industrial uses, research park, etc. The rest of the North Branch should be removed as a PMD; the infrastructure is buckling under all the heavy truck traffic. Let the market determine where large scrap metal and recycling operations should go (hint: it ain't on the edge of Lincoln Park).

That's fair, I always get disoriented as to what's next to what on the near south side because of all the viaducts and freeways. There's nothing depressed about University Village, Pilsen, Chinatown, etc...

So true, as cool as it is to drive through an active scrapyard and almost get picked up by a giant magnet crane on the way to the Trader Joe's parking garage, it really makes no sense at all.

Yeah, there are a lot of hard infrastructure barriers that aren't gonna go away. The Dan Ryan, the BNSF rail line at 15th, the river, etc.

There are actually a lot of good connections across those, though, and amazingly the Chinese community has been building housing in the middle of all this infrastructure on some very unlikely sites. The Canal St corridor is a super-walkable way to go from Chinatown to Bridgeport. The awesome buildings at Cermak and Jefferson are unfortunately another PMD, but they could make a super-dope ready-made loft neighborhood.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...oreUserAgent=1

Every time I see this thread bumped I go "Now what?"...


I doubt anything will come of this either with dumbass Davies at the helm. Stupid oil money does a lot of dumb things, but I doubt they'll be stupid enough to hand Davies $150 million for something he paid next to nothing for, especially considering the oil market right now.

I do hope it goes through, I just don't see it as likely. It would be nice to start garnering attention from the types of people who have been dumping money into NYC, London, Dubai, etc etc. That's a set of people who are largely ignorant of Chicago's existence.

They probably showed him some flashy designs to turn the place into Dubai 2 with a bunch of mile-high towers shaped like Klingon sex toys. Ever since Sterling Bay dropped out I've abandoned hope for this project being anything good, and now I'd settle for anything less than a total embarrassment. If they don't use a local developer it's just going to end up about as well as the Spire.

Well, that was quick...
 

At Old Main Post Office, another deal can't be delivered

A Middle Eastern developer's interest in buying and redeveloping the Old Main Post Office apparently has come and gone, the latest mirage for the art deco colossus that has sat empty for 19 years.

Gulf Resources Development & Investment, a company based in United Arab Emirates, was negotiating to buy the 2.7 million-square-foot structure for about $150 million, according to people familiar with the deal. But soon after Crain's reported that a potential sale was in the works, British owner Bill Davies killed the deal. He plans once again to launch his own development on the highly visible site along the Chicago River...

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...stumbles-again

City's going to have to eminent domain this thing.

After they take hold of it, they should then sell it off to the person who's offering the best price and has been shown to have a good track record for big projects. At this point I just want anything that will be a shot in the arm for the area around the Post Office.

Metra and or Amtrak would be a logical eminent domain driver for the base rail access but sell off above grade property to a serious developer.

the city of chicago just grew a pair!

full article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...924-story.html

^ :)

There are new signs (1,000,000+ sq ft for lease..) posted on it as you cruise under on the Ike

Usually when I decide to acquire a million square foot lease it's because I saw a sign from the highway.

I'd be impressed if someone managed to get the sign's phone number down that fast while driving on the Ike

One would think Sterling Bay makes their west loop acquisitions that way. They own more properties than they can count. But I regards to the PO, something is better than nothing!

It's really about time the city start turning the screws. This is almost better news than all the big projects announced recently for the South Loop.

Was this in the 2nd ward before the redo or was this always Solis's?

I believe this site and large parts of the south loop were given to Solis as part of Operation Gerrymander Fioretti Out of Office.

What's the legality of that? Didn't the city do that with SoNo and lose in court, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars?

Not sure when exactly Solis got this corner of the Loop (it was in his ward - or at least he had the zoning decision-making over it - a few years ago when the ridiculous pie-in-the-sky fantasy project got its PD approved.....which Solis got conned (or perhaps took a sizey contribution for??) into believing was necessary for something to happen with the post office itself (digress, but Solis is a demonstrably gullible type of fellow - he also let McCaffery blow a huge plume of smoke right up his clown hole with respect to the British School and contrapark). Of course though Davies is not a developer at all - it was never his intention to develop anything - it was his intention rather to - if he could - flip at an enormous profit. But the preposterousness of the PD gave Davies the severely misguided notion that he could receive (who really knows how high this multipe goes?) 2x, 3x, 5x etc the $ for the post office than what reasonable offers by competent capable developers with track record would actually offer. I was rightly critical of Solis 3-4 years ago when he backed this goofy PD (development that was never - and will never - in its current form - actually going to happen), and I'm steadfast in it today - Solis shares culpability in this post office saga. Well, at least it's he as well that has to try to clean up his own mess here.