People seem to drive more chaotically in River North than the Loop, I noticed while walking through River North last night. It seems people drive into the Loop at least knowing they'll be stuck in gridlock, while people drive into River North from Naperville thinking they can cruise right up to Grand Plaza from the Kennedy. They get frustrated when there's traffic and take out their anger by cutting off some pedestrians on an aggressive turn.

Most of the worst drivers I've seen, or folks doing the craziest maneuvers, are usually Uber/Lyft drivers. Folks from the suburbs, with limited experience driving in the city, who aren't used to driving in confined spaces while trying to read a map on a phone and locate customers on crowded sidewalks.

Because it might sink?

Or people can walk instead of drive.

There, I've solved the traffic problem you've suggested my be an issue.

I think that the planners who gave the okay in the first place know more about it than the alderman.

Not to get too far OT, but Black SUVs with livery plates are by far downtown's most dangerous drivers in my experience.

Those guys are just taxi drivers in Uber Black cars. And yes, horrible.

In general, Chicago has some very bad and dangerous drivers; they're usually in cars with out of state plates. Also, never trust a car without a city sticker.

What planners? All Chicago has are people with a rubber stamp. If the mayor, the alderman, and a powerful developer want something, it'll get approved. Usually you only need two of the three.

The development team paid for a traffic study and hired KLOA to do it. The study recommended new signals on Kinzie and some other modest changes in the neighborhood, which are being implemented. Of course, KLOA aren't urban designers. They just tell you how to get the streets moving at a certain level of efficiency given a certain level of traffic, they wouldn't recommend visionary things like a new street or new river crossings.

As for the height reduction - not sure there even was a reduction, since the plans were kept intentionally vague for so long. Architecturally, these buildings are so slender that they will have pretty much the same visual impact as a supertall. I'm very happy with the appearance of these towers (even if the floorplans are crazy inefficient). The stupid dick-measuring contest of numerical height doesn't really interest me. This forum only encourages that kind of lizard-brain thinking by separating supertalls into a whole other forum....

I'm assessing from all angles, but thanks for you less than insightful input.

^ Damn Ardecila, you've taken a strong anti-height turn these days. Did you recently have a nightmare about falling out of a tall building or something? ;)

Anyhow, I agree but I will say that this site deserves something bold and prominent, and that should hopefully be delivered by the south tower

Landlocked? It's on the river!

Yeah when I read that my brain started hurting and continues to hurt as I reread it over and over. This may be bad for my health. Also yeah, what's with ardecila getting all NIMBY over the last 2 weeks? You must be right, he's having bad vertigo and nightmares about buildings falling

^ This building looks great but I agree with most saying the taller version would defiantly be more appropriate for this signature locations... Chicago for some reasons has these alderman or one in specific whos major goal is to lower the height of any proposal wheather its by 100ft or 300ft for some reason he feel its a victory for the community??..I never understood this whole concept...if a developer wants to build taller why stop him?..what impact on people does it have?...its more about people who have nothing else to do but complain about anything that is new to there area... The only thing we should be demanding from developers is quality architecure and street level presence...OK...rant is over...cant wait to see this building rise... :)

I'd much rather see better development than taller development - better architecture, more amenities for the community (plazas/transit/etc), less parking. I'm really impressed by this new design. The numerical height of the building could not matter less to me, I'm interested in how it works on that site. And this new design puts a dramatic exclamation point on an important downtown site.

Tall buildings are wonderful, I just don't get a boner when a building crosses some "magical" 1000' threshold. River Point is extremely prominent on the skyline and it's only 730'. This building will be 30% taller than that even, it will dominate the view from the West Loop. You won't see it from the lakefront, but it's not near the lakefront, so that's not a reasonable expectation.

Speaking of the West Loop - I'm totally fine with the increasing trend of height there. Buildings in the 10-12 story range seem to create the most pleasant streetscapes, and previously developers were only putting up 4-5 story buildings, so I love all these new Sterling Bay, etc proposals. That proposal on Ogden is just so strangely tall when there is literally zero residential within a 3 block radius of that site...

In this location, height is a factor because of the sites prominence. I think that most people here agree that the design is satisfactory, all we're saying is that it should be extruded slightly more to make a greater visual impact.

It's not necessarily just about throwing a bone because of height, it's about the cumulation of all the factors we tend to discuss on this forum. The location of Wolf Point deserves something spectacular; in terms of design and height.

Yes, you can have shorter buildings that make a statement, but why limit oneself?

I find the black cars must less of a fuck than the normal uber. At least they tend to be actual drivers as their job. The normal uber goobers have no idea.

Or 3 if you work out something with Lower Merch Mart Plaza that then connects to Wells, or Carroll.

And 4 if you go under the Apparel Mart, or around it along the river, to Kinzie. Or revive the (currently highly photogenic) CNW Carroll alignment bridge for vehicles/peds to Canal.

The site for WPS is arguably the most geographically important in the history of the city (at least from view corridors and position in the skyline...)

The latest design iterations from Pelli, although a massive improvement from the earlier versions, still require something bolder for that last and most important location... having a super tall would help...



thanks, jarta, for your unbiased, objective opinion... all of these density arguments are a complete joke... when was the last time anyone here was caught in gridlock on Orleans? :koko: compare this to NYC, which, of course is so horrible, no one wants to live or work there...

I couldn't agree more with this. Not only will the views be forever unobstructed to the south, east and somewhat north-west, but the views OF this building will endure for the entirety of Chicago's future. The newest design is nice, but polite. It's non-offensive nature will probably age well, but I wish they would make more of a statement with WPS.

wolf point absolutely demands a tall signature building. will it make much difference if that building is 950'-0" or 1000'-1"? no, of course not.

but if there were somehow a way to circumvent the approved PD and get something on the south plot above the 1,200' mark, i think that would play a lot better on the skyline. something to really landmark the confluence; something that could be easily seen from vantage points all over the city.

of course, good design is always paramount. a well-designed 950' tower is light years more preferable than some tacky and ugly 1,200' or 1,500' or however tall building. i quite like the design shown for the south tower in the most recently released rendering. as others have said, it's pretty safe, but i still like it. its slenderness from the south branch would be very impressive. perspectives from other angles may be far less flattering, though.

Oct 07