The argument could be made that had they waited til today to finish 111 Wacker they could have gone supertall but something had to be done with the hideousness that the unfinished Waterview tower was A.S.A.P. We tolerate the massive hole in the ground but that rusting concrete shell right on the the river was intolerable. Im glad theres a building there now and it was the first 600 footer completed after the recession.

related was allowed to build a piece of shit because it was half built and the city wanted something done.


related needs to be HEAVILY controlled in the future in chicago.

The structure for 111 W Wacker was already 20 floors out of the ground and basically built for an impractical needle of a tower. The floor plates were very inefficiant and would have made for terrible rental units relative to the expense of building them. Remember the initial redesign and disappointing half assing we ended up with both involved massive structural rework involving the demo of the parially built existing transfer floor and the repouring of a massive mat halfway up the tower. That limits what can be done and if you are not going to be able to make slender work on that site, then you are screwed.

The Spire Hole on the other hand is stopped at the best possible spot, after completion of cassions and bathtub slurry wall, but before any superstructure or even the mat is built. They can simply figure out how to set the building on the existing foundations and build whatever they want from there. I would imagine we won't see anything quite as tall and slender as the Sprire, but I bet we will see every last SF and unit entitled under that plan (and it was quite a lot of space, 1200 units and 3,000,000 SF). It will be a big building regardless of the actual aesthetics.

Just be taller than the Sears Tower. That's all I ask for.

You're probably right, but man that would be such a wasted opportunity.

That would be nice, of course, but I think with the location, a 900-1000' would be ideal and realistic. Thing is, the location is great and a 1300+ foot tower would be a wet dream, but will the market allow it?

I question what market this would cater to? Are we speculating units in the 600k - 4 million range or something insane like 10+ million?

I think the lower range would be ideal for buying if it is indeed a residential.

Mixed use. Gateway concept had it right.

In my years on this forum I will never understand this mindset. What does this tower's being taller than Sears achieve?

I agree it should be a tall and prominent tower, but why does being taller than Sears matter?

Sorry if this is already well known, but I seem to remember Calatrava was paid something like $11 million for the design and engineering work for the Spire at this site.
Were the design rights and working plans for that design transferred to Related in the bankruptcy proceedings? I doubt it would happen, but if Related owns the Calatrava design, could they simply continue with it? Or is that somehow ruled out?
After all, the foundation work in the ground right now is perfect for the 2008 version Spire, and the superstar architect already got paid. Why not use it?

I think Calatrava did finally get paid via the courts, but I am not sure. I think Related will do their own cheaper, value engineered design, not the Spire wich was going to be a very costly building to make.

It means we get a really tall building, and likely the "tallest building in the US" title which I want back in Chicago. It would be a huge accomplishment and ego boost to the city.

Related has already gone on record multiple times stating that they will not be building the Spire.

I think its ok to want a building taller than Sears in Chicago. We held the title for tallest building in the world for 24 years, tallest in America until 2 years ago, busiest airport in the world for most of our lives until recently, etc. Its ok to want to strive for what other cities in America (NY) and around the world are capable of. We've gone a century being able to accomplish the same and more than any city in the world, but recently we have settled for truly being a second city.

I know we don't have quite the demand, land values, or foreign investment of some of those place but damn, we built the Sears Tower, JHC, and Aon in 5 years of each other. Its fine to want to strive to make another huge mark for our city. Mainly because just 10 years ago we did strive for that mark in this exact location.

I think it's incredibly easy to understand. People have always been fascinated with going bigger, stronger, faster, farther etc... how can you not understand that?

^ I just don't think Chicago needs to be the tallest any more.

This mentality is like some teenager who wants to buy a muscle car to be faster than everyone else, meanwhile the mature people driving much nicer cars are laughing at all the immaturity.

Those are the needs of a different city. Chicago isn't that city any more, IMO. The focus now should be on a great urban environment, good design, and of course a rock solid economy.

So to keep this post on topic, setting some kind of milestone (dude this better be taller than the Sears Tower) seems unbecoming and, frankly, juvenile to me.

You forget, the Spire was basically a 7-sided polygon (heptagon) with a round core. The caissons are laid out in this shape also. Unfortunately this implies a polygonal or round floorplate and wedge-shaped units, which are super-inefficient and extremely difficult to sell. Every realtor worth their salt will tell their clients to look elsewhere first before buying at Related's project - those one-percenter condo buyers could get the same views in multiple Lakeshore East or Streeterville buildings after all.

Kelleher/Shelbourne faced this problem too, which is why he had Calatrava design the unit interiors and even the door handles - he had to create enough prestige and design star power to outweigh the major drawbacks of the condo layouts.

Related could fix this by switching to a rectangular floorplate, but this would involve some massive and very expensive load transfer, either with a HUGE mat/grade beams or some structural acrobatics above ground.

Will be interesting to see how they resolve this - either they go the Shelbourne route and sink money into world-class design that works around the problems of the foundation, or they spend that same money on structure to switch the configuration to a rectangle. Or maybe Chinese buyers flood into Chicago looking to park their money, and none of this will matter... :shrug:

Sorry, must be on the wrong forum. Thought this was skyscraperpage

The caissons were completed, but it never got to the point of pouring the mat slab, so since one is needed anyway, there would be little marginal cost designing the new one for such a structural reconfiguration.

These things aren't mutually exclusive. You can have all of that plus a really tall building. Hell, greater size likely means more jobs and tax revenue to help the economy.

It's not hard to understand why people get more excited over a 2000 ft tall building vs a 900 ft tall building.

Like scalziand said, they only put in the bathtub walls and cassions. They could easily reconfigure the load to just about any shape (though rounded would be cheaper than any other alternative) during the mat pour. They could also add Cassions here and there or not use a couple of them if they were really that inconviently placed. The problem with a project like the Waterview site is that they had to demolish a transfer floor (these things are obviously not meant to be demolished, very expensive) and then pour an entierly different transfer floor that relocated all the load from the supertall collumns on the NW side of the building to the midrise SE side of the building. Basically had to demolish one mat pour's worth of work and then replace it with an even more complicated mat pour. The Spire just has footings sitting there waiting to be tied together in any configuration you like.

Saw this on SSC there was no reference to who created it but I thought I should share it here.

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/pr...8425ab79ee.jpg

It's just that Gensler fantasy design. Pretty high quality rendering though, could easily be mistaken for an actual photograph.

it's so good i can't bear looking anymore

Why......why do this to us? Related is going to put up a 900 ft bland box.

Make it law. Not only this site but Magellan's across the river have to be 2000 ft'rs.

My dream would be anything taller than Sears. Hell, if it's less than a 1000 ft, don't bother building it.

Feb 6

I agree, but what's being worked on now isn't anywhere close to that on Magellans's site... think 900' at most (probably less)

What's the Magellan site?

Is it that crazy to think magellan and related could co-op on 2000' twins? Yeah a little tacky and no im not asking for a sky bridge, but what an entrance way to chicago. Or i could be completely wrong and these two companies hate each other?

LSE across the river.

This must have been a somewhat recent render. River Point Tower and 150 N Riverside are both complete in the photo. Or maybe someone was just playing around with the idea and now we're all anxious.

Plot twist: Gensler's Gateway Tower is Related's proposal for the site

Man, that would be sweet...

Where did you hear this? Back in June this was considered just a ballpark concept but had no relation in any way to Related Midwests vision for the site.

http://www.archdaily.com/788941/gens...ago-spire-site

He's joking.

I was 95% sure of that but the other 5% was hoping I'd missed something

Can who ever did that render add Wanda Vista, One Bennet, Wolf Pointe, and the Adrian Smith Thompson Center!

First post!

I'm a plain architecture enthusiast with no actual technical or real-world knowledge of how these things work. That said, the connection to DuSable Park for public use right at the entrance to the river is a nice nod to the Burnham plan. Of course, I'd like Chicago to build buildings that, first and foremost, make the most sense. But anytime someone proposes (or even draws up plans for) a supertall tower in the 2,000 foot range, I'll always pay attention. Just build something cool here.

Adrian Thompson Center? At that point, you may as well as for them to just out the Chicago Spire on top of the Gateway Tower. It ain't happening.

I mean neither is the gateway tower yet here we are....

:(

Damn it.

Those pinetrees are looking nice. In another 10 years they should be big enough to block the view of that big hole in the ground that will probably still be there.....

have you seen schematics for what's being planned for magellan's remaining LSE sites along LSD?

i know you probably can't divulge much more than you already have, but is there cause to be cautiously optimistic about the architecture?

^ In other words, bark twice if Jean Nouvel or Lord Norman Foster is on the table. :tup:

Just chatted about it at this point and seen some very preliminary massing...

Not to worry, FOTParking Lots will sue to block the intrusion of the one leg on DuSable Park and we will get a 2000' echo deco shitbox instead.

anything that the massing you've seen is similar to?

Why did Gensler even bother to have a company-wide competition for this site and then release renderings of the winning submission? It's not like every day architecture enthusiasts are going to have heart palpitations over the designs or anything, right?!

Either way, now I want nothing less than this "fantasy" design. It's even leagues more impressive than Calatrava's design. But this is Related, so hold on to your butts...500-700 ft. cluster stumps are on the way!

No way^^^ I could see Magellan keeping theirs under 900' but I dont think Related is stupid enough to keep the spire site anything less than Vista.