When I first saw the photos of the facade I felt the same way. After seeing it in person later, I think it just doesn’t photograph well, but in context it fits and looks fine IMO.

I think it looks good up close but from far away the detail is lost and it looks kind of a mess. Considering it's not in a terribly prominent spot (once the rest of the surrounding development is complete) it's not that big of a deal - river tours will see the up close version. Decent infill, nothing more.

It’s my least favorite development under construction with highrise status. The top residential levels are fine, but the podium bothers me. Here you have an opportunity for visibility on the river and it sticks parking front and center. I would have shortened the parking depth 3/4, shifted the core to that mark and done a really tall amenities floor or floors that face the river on the lower levels…indoor basketball court, pool, etc so they are visible from the river.

The Reed is more upscale than i expected.

From low 400K's-1.4 million dollar condos.

https://thereedsouthbank.com/condos/

01.27.22
 

Meant 2023

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1674852174

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1674852174

Not really excited about the top part. Hope they do something to make it look better somehow but I'm not optimistic.

I think if it was a few shades lighter it wouldn't be as oppressive as it is.

Call me crazy but I don't hate it.

Will the other buildings in this development look the same? If they're even still planned to be built that is...

I wish they had done glass slab-edge covers so the vertical "bars" would be unbroken. And done basket balconies on the corners only instead of mid-building.

Reed isn't a bad building, but it's just so blocky. It really stands out because Cooper was very carefully sculpted and articulated with folding planes, loggias, etc. Very clearly a Ralph Johnson project like Contemporaine or Rush Hospital. I'm not sure what happened to make them change direction so radically - Perkins+Will did both towers.

I'm surprised to see that Reed is condos - maybe that had something to do with the redesign. It's long been assumed by developers that you can't sell condos in Chicago unless they come with a parking space attached. Maybe the shift to condos forced them to enlarge the garage and swallow up the liner units, the loggia along the river, etc?

It's a combo of rentals and for-sale condos. I assume the condos start on the higher floors.

I like the building and don't think it feels particularly oppressive in person. The blockiness works in contrast to the sculptural quality of The Cooper and the waviness of River City.

Time to line up the next one!

I saw it in person today and quite liked it. The "messiness" of the windows looked rather unique, and the dark blue is a welcome departure from the ubiquitous light blue.

I like the tower! I do wish they had gotten more creative with the podium, and mainly i wish the glass facade would have continued a bit higher to cover the exposed mechanical levels

How are sales doing on this one? Can we expect another one to start, or is that going to be in the next cycle? I think we're all hoping for the taller tower A but I would assume the shorter tower B would be up next.

03.12.23
https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1678757486

03.13.23
https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1678757889

You'd think that with the placement of this building right on the River they could have at least had residential units extending down covering the shoreline portion.

That being said it has a huge presence looking south from the loop. Standing on the Jackson bridge it admirably fills the gap and looks ok imo

The tower portion looks pretty attractive. I like the color scheme and the offset window design. The base however, not so much. As kolchak said, you would think they could have done something better with the river fronting portion at the very least. Overall however, its still a solid addition to the South Loop skyline.

March 19th
 

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

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

Wait they are building more towers in this area?

The top of the building drives me crazy. It's really sad they didn't put more effort to blend the top with the rest of the building. It's a really ugly stump.

Here's the site plan. Sub Area D has been built. Sub Area E is under construction. The rest are future development.

I'm starting to appreciate how incomprehensible this building's design is. I no longer see this as something ugly, rather something ominous and perplexing. People hundreds of years from now will be walking along the river, staring at this building, and thinking to themselves, "Why the hell does this building exist?" People will question if an architect even designed this building, because there's no way an architect could possibly design a building with such an absurd appearance.

It'll be Chicago's version of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Like others have said, it's really striking how drastically the developers changed directions on this. The original renderings of the complex had a cohesive, if kind of uninspired, theme of white buildings with horizontal ribbons of glass. This is... certainly not that. Interested to see what the rest of the towers will end up looking like. I just hope the final complex won't end up looking like an incoherent mishmash.

It's certainly better-looking in person than in photos. I just have a long-standing irrational gripe against the style of offsetting the windows in this fashion. As far as that trend goes, I think this building does it better than most. Better than NYC's Alta Long Island City or 300 Ashland... or Detroit's The Exchange... or even Chicago's 1611 W. Division (Hope I'm not blaspheming!)... or... I could keep going but I think I've been enough of a sourpuss. Long story short, this building is fine.

Hopefully whatever they build at the north end is much better and blocks the view of this turd.

The Reed at Southbank - 234 W Polk
 

March 20, 2023

Damn, CBOT could use some love (a nice powerwashing)

I was looking for something on ChiStreetWork and found this:

WEI PROJECT 58225299 CONSISTS OF CONDUCTING THIRTEEN SOIL BORINGS ADVANCED TO TERMINATION DEPTHS OF APPROXIMATELY 100 FEET BELOW GROUND SURFACE WITHIN THE EMPTY LOT AREA TO CLASSIFY SOIL CHARACTERISTICS FOR FUTURE DESIGN OF SITE ENHANCEMENTS. AN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL, IR-120194, WAS PROCESSED AND A SUBSEQUENT INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE/CONFIRM THE LOCATIONS OF UNDERGROUND FREIGHT TUNNELS LOCATED ON THE SITE. EACH BORING WILL BE A NOMINAL 8-INCH DIAMETER AND BACKFILLED UPON COMPLETION. APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF THE JOBSITE IS BOUNDED BY THE CHICAGO RIVER TO THE WEST, WEST HARRISON STREET TO THE NORTH, SOUTH WELLS STREET TO THE EAST AND POLK STREET TO THE SOUTH.

Interesting... Preliminary steps for the next building. Confirm the tunnel locations and then grout it. I hope they do a better job concealing the garage for the next tower.

kind of menacing looking down franklin (yesterday)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

The top of the building makes my eyes suffer :yuck:

04.24.23
 

Apparently so does the bottom...

The Reed at Southbank - 234 W Polk
 

May 9, 2023

Definitely not a fan of how this one turned out......

I like it enough. Positive is that it's a big brawny building that uses all of it's available footprint. The facade is like a new age version of a black Mies. Negative - the base is not good but at least the podium lies under and not adjacent to the tower.

I don't know. I appreciate that it's different, but the randomized facade looks like a low-resolution computer screen whose pixels are trying their hardest, especially at a distance. Hope future developments offer something better.

The architect forgot to turn on anti-aliasing?

According to the website apartment reservations, first available date for move-ins is May 26. Seems they have less than two weeks to complete a majority of the public space work.

what I am having trouble understanding is why those big black lines are placed where they are anyway. the are indeed random and therefore just blocking out space that would have otherwise been vision glass?

It's just the location of the vision glass floor to floor, in that the plan layouts may not differ much at all, just that some floors have vision glass probably 2' (+/-) over from floors below or above.

Anyone remember this? https://www.screensaversplanet.com/s...he-matrix-563/

the top of the building still bothers me a lot. i wish they would have not cheapened out on having a crown to hide the core/stump.

05.29.23
 

I'm pretty sure the first residents have moved in.

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1685494845