Whoa! This is potentially huge news!

Saw this in the article

So they're a tunnel running under the river on Jackson??

Awesome

I'd be happy with 775 foot twin towers but it'd be awesome if they could build near supertall range or even high 800's in this spot.

Really interesting if we see anything start rising from this block next summer. Any idea on which tower/site would be developed first? Ideally the parking lot on the southwest corner of the site goes first, for aesthetic reasons...


Yup! Actually its midblock between Van Buren and Jackson (about 150 feet north of Van Buren). It was an old street car tunnel, one of three total in the Loop. The others were at Washington and Lasalle, the former which still has the tunnel portals very visible (used for underground parking garage access now).

The ripping up/paving over of the old street car network was one of the greatest travesties that has happened in this city, considering we had one of the largest networks in the world.

Wasn’t JP Morgan Chase considering this site?

That’s what I thought! I hope this become Fruition

Me too!

I hope the design has changed.

No... the site that JP Morgan Chase was looking at is 401 S. Wacker Drive ...right across street from these sites ... This is the potential mystery proposal someone brought up months back about a 80 plus story office tower or something like that..

Thanks. I thought that they were looking at a few sites, including that one.

After 5 years seems plausible.

Cool thanks, I remember hearing something about these a while back.

Here's the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street...els_in_Chicago

And here's a very nice video on YouTube about them! (with 200k views) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trCkptXQc1E

The video was just added a month ago by a YouTube history channel, so nice timing.

Obviously, the crews that built BMO Tower encountered the Van Buren tunnel. Anybody know how they dealt with it? Could the tunnel still be tied back into Union Station and the all-weather passage that will eventually be completed to the Clinton Blue Line Station?

OK, I'll take two 65 floor office towers next 311 Wacker and an 80 story plus one at 401 thank you very much...

No, the ramp at LaSalle/Kinzie that leads to Carroll St is a block south of where the old tunnel portal used to sit. None of the old portals remain visible, although in most cases the structures are still there underground.

The LaSalle tunnel was severed by the Blue Line subway under Lake St, and the Van Buren Tunnel now has underground parking garages sitting at both of the old portal locations. Washington is really the only tunnel that could still be used, but it's not clear for what.

Actually I think 311 S Wacker was designed to integrate with the tunnel in the future, if the city ever decided to use it. From the lower level of the winter garden, they'd just need to add one pair of escalators going down.

Not sure but I imagine they obliterated it for the core foundation. It probably still remains in place up to the west line of Canal St so it could still be connected via elevator/stairs to the Union Station pedway.

The problem with using the old streetcar tunnel as a pedway is how unrelievedly boring it is. It's one thing to walk 1000 feet on a sidewalk, past shop windows and intervening streets, but an entirely different thing to walk that far in a lonely underground tunnel. For anyone to ever use it—except when it's below 0º—you'd have to put in a little shuttle, like the Senate Subway or Denver airport. Maybe we could put some electric scooters at both ends.

I can think of a way to make it interesting.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uN3B..._1180043.6.jpg

Hello.

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/...16s116117992-l

Looks like it's only 31 floors.

That listing is almost the same as this one from 2016/2017 over on LoopNet.

Chase has also been looking at the 321 S Wacker site too. I don't understand why though. Why would they want their new signature tower to be overshadowed by it's immediate neighbor and visually competing against another future tower on the other parcel?

Is there enough vacant space at Sears Tower to consolidate Chase operations? Maybe a name change as well?

. . .