Than maybe you're problem should be with the renters that scoop up these units at the rates Magellan and/or Related (because I know that's a sore point for you as well) are marketing. Instead of complaining about the developers for their unit quality for rent offered, if there is no shortage of renters for these, I suppose they should actually be the focus of your ire, no?

yes, i would like to kill off all the morons, but since i cannot do that, i have to take a top down approach off not allowing them to make stupid choices that make things worse for me.

When the revolution comes and anarchy arrives, you will get your chance. But right now, we must accept that they are most the world, and just wait until the revolution hits or until the aliens arrive and do it for you. Although you might be in that crowd. :haha:

According to Hollywood History, Chicago has yet to have the Megatron battle which devastated most of the city. We should be lucky that they haven't arrived yet.

These are BKL's renderings from the bid set. 642'-4" to top of parapet. 9'-2" ceilings throughout. Hotel is located on floors 4-21. Looks like they really admired Lowes' model. Enjoy.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...-no/CHI136.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...-no/CHI137.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V...-no/CHI138.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...-no/CHI139.jpg

^. I like the base. Not sure I like the 2 color scheme

Well that's about what I expected through and through. Only so much you can do on a site this shape. Hopefully there isn't a big blank wall against the BCBS plaza on the South Side. I like how narrow it is and the little cantilever effect halfway up the building.

^. It looks like it will be a good contribution to the area, minimizing view blockage and shadow effects on the LSE park. I'd like to see floor plans for the retail/lobby levels.

I wonder what the second cantilever (above the podium levels) will be for?

I agree with TUP the base looks great but I think the rest looks a little confused.

^^^It's all glass on the BCBS side.

Difficult to read, so from West to East it goes: Retail, Hotel Lobby B, Elevator core, Hotel Lobby A, Residential Elevator core, Restaurant.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e...-no/CHI140.jpg

Not bad for a 600' filler.

I like this a lot. Also about what I was expecting. Base looks very nice. I like how the top of the tower (residential) is slightly wider than the bottom (hotel).

Nice work from bKL.

What's up with Skyguy? He just pulled a total Spyguy!! :)

It's also a bit taller than I was thinking (thought it might be more in the 550'-600' range)......and finally, very nice to see Magellan getting some religion finally on ceiling heights - BVic, you did in fact nail this one!!

Not bad. I thought it would be taller to be honest, but its a good filler nevertheless if we are talking strictly fillers. Design wise I think its a little bland, but thats just my opinion. I think its a missed opportunity given the site location, and I think it falls a little short on the design. I'm digging the base, but thats about it. :)

Looks pretty nice, thanks Skyguy - any word on who the Hotel operator might be? I would assume it might end up being a high-end, 4-5 star flag - since the Radisson BLU is literally 40' to the north, I would think Magellan might want to market to a higher-end market/traveler/visitor so as not to compete with the Radisson - maybe Mandarin will be resurrected? St. Regis?

^ Don't quote me on this, but it might be of the Commune Hotel brand family, which gave us Hotel Lincoln. In other words; Jackpot!

Mods: Height to top of parapet is 642'

Walked by the site today, two rigs where on site presumably taking soil samples.

^ Damn this is moving fast.

^ Pardon my pickiness here, but I have always found that little concrete edge at the southwest corner of the circular drive (see the NE corner of the podium of the BCBS building) awkward.

One can't tell from the renderings, but I've always wondered if the developers plan to do anything to mitigate it...

thanks. do you know how many floors?

^^ Well, I can say that you don't see that concrete edge I think you're talking about in the rendering above (the one that Sentinel reposted)......


Commune? Hmmmm.........are they all individual, boutiquey hotels? Are we sure SLS isn't still in the mix here? This is A LOT of hotel rooms.........

Steely- The top floor is shown as Level 55, but there are 5 levels below the plaza.. So 60 from Lower Columbus. You had it right.

Being discreet here, but somebody who I just talked to that was very surprised to see this images leaked wanted me to be very clear about the fact that the podium is not a parking podium and is all active-use. It seems that the parking podium hate has made its way to the, uh, type of people I'm talking about.

^^I like the Thompson and the Lincoln hotels in Chicago, but now with the newly opened Soho House, I'm really getting tired of the 'hipster-thriftstore-look-but-thrice-as-expensive' design philosophy, where everything is custom-designed by professionals but made to look as if everything about the interior decor is a compilation of found dumpster objects. I long for the days of streamlined, contemporary (even slightly futuristic) hospitality design, where the design philosophy was more holistic and unified and not a weird pastiche of patterns, colors, mismatched furniture. Bleh.

That's just fashion. Pottery Barn has been plucking that chicken for ages.

They might spin up a new brand for this one. Not sure if they'd want two boutique hotels with the same name in the same town.

Here's a shot of the site I took today with trucks present.

http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs...site-o-now.jpg

From the Curbed Post: Say Hello to the New bKL-Designed Tower for Lakeshore East

Soil samples, right? I imagine they'll have to test for thorium too eventually.

I had pictured the tower at the west end against Columbus instead of against the park, but this does make sense. From Aqua, it only blocks views of 340 OTP, and leaves the view corridor down Columbus to Grant Park open. It's shorter than both 340 and BCBS, so won't block the expensive Aqua units that see over them. I have a friend who lives in Aqua and I don't think she'll mind this. She looked worried when I showed her the Gang proposal.

As for the design, it looks like the little brother of BCBS, with the two part design and open columns at the transition.
And from the render the base at park level looks to go right to the edge of the sidewalk. Should cover that wall TUP is talking about.

The only thing that I don't like is that they've made the area at the south edge of Aqua into an active driveway for the hotel. Whereas now it just sees some delivery trucks, that's going to have a lot more traffic now coming and going. I guess a hotel kinda needs auto access from upper Columbus, but that's a shame.

Kerwin and Co.?

If so, didn't he/they have similar reaction when 645 W Madison renderings popped-up?

All I would offer to them: Be realistic. This is 2014. If it's not your own Chinese partner mistakenly 'leaking' your rendering and project (perhaps some mis-) information to the world - in an 'official' press release (wtf), you need to assume Spyguy and/or Skyguy are looking over your shoulder. Then there's the NSA. You really need to be at home, sitting in the corner of a near pitch-black locked closet, hand-sketching for your designs not to show up on the internet....


About the parking: I think your rationale is probably right they are likely concerned about the urban design and perception of it - but there is another reason they might be extra sensitive about anything related to parking at 201 Columbus - and that has to do with all the legal fiascos related to the Grant Park garages the city sold off with the stipulation that they not allow any additional public parking to be built within (I forget precisely how close) a few blocks (this site included). Remember the controversy related to this issue with Aqua? Any additional parking here would need to be strictly for hotel guests and apartment residents....

I'm with you here. That is a fad - and I think a niche one at that. Don't worry, though, it will pass and/or just be a small, quirky segment..........just like Civil War-era mustaches......

This is a developer problem I'd say. Designers would love to release ultra high res assets the second they make them, and go on record explaining every decision. The clients are the ones that make them keep a lid on it, and say "no comment" even when I show them leaked plans and renders, because they have some poorly conceived idea of an announcement timeline culminating in a cocktail party or a groundbreaking gala featuring Rahm and Alderman OReally.

The industry could use a bump up in their PR game, realizing that renders will always leak and that there's a huge market of people who want to see them ASAP, and that once the word is out there's no point being coy anymore. They should get ahead of the game and release their renders as soon as they're ready for bids, so they can start curating some interest and maybe some public support to help cary them through the approval process.

Are there going to be two separate hotels in the building? "Hotel Lobby A" and "Hotel Lobby B" suggests that there may be two separate hotels.

The building looks good. Definitely has a close resemblance to the BCBS building. But I don't know that is a bad thing. This will complete the west side of LSE. Only tow more sides to go.

^^ Agreed.

^ Yes, two distinct hotels was always my understanding with this project.....

And the reason developers behave this way is the politicians. You even say it yourself, they want the announcement to be a ceremony with Rahm and the alderman there to take credit for creating so many jobs. You see what happens to developers who don't do things this way on a monthly basis. If you don't keep things quiet and work on the alderman's timeline, then they fuck you and don't cooperate or even take your entitlements away.

If there is a big blank wall, hopefully they can keep these Trees intact. They are fairly semi-mature in size. It would be a shame to have to start over. I am not holding my breath though. If they embraced the plaza and put some retail on that side it would great. Some kind of cafe or something? I would quess that BCBS may not be into that though, considering that there is still no connection between their plaza and the second floor entrance to Marianos...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...no/Capture.JPG

BCBS isn't part of the Magellan/LSE club, so they've got no reason to play nice with the neighbors.

The city should really force BCBS to integrate with its neighbors. It's utter ridiculous that you can't cut through the BCBS plaza to Marianos.


In other news, some person on reddit is claiming that this will be operated by either Commune Hotels and Resorts or Joie De Vivre.

Sounds like a job for aldermen.

Not blank, but looks like there will be no doors on the ground floor facing south. There are a few terraces facing BCBS on the 2nd/3rd floors of the podium. Mostly spandrel glass.

The first floor of 201 N. Columbus is actually a few feet higher than the BCBS plaza, so any access there would require stairs/ramps.

http://i.imgur.com/eBM3QVul.jpg

Looks like a dual flag hotel.

they should be forced to connect the two plazas on either side.

Looks like we can confirm it is a Joie De Vivre and another Commune flag: Tommie. Thanks for the stacking plan Aaron.

Also, it's extremely interesting that the residential lobby is at LSE park level. What a great way to make use of the raised streets by separating the hotel lobbies and retail uses from the residential lobby.

Didn't they say there would be no parking? Does the parking in the stacking diagram already exist?

Not no parking, just no parking in the podium. I think they're adding about 190 spaces below street level.

The online info we currently have indicated that the (below Upper Columbus) parking would possibly be extended from where the Aqua parking currently ends - they'll probably knock out the southside reinforced CMU walls and extend the parking to the property line abutting BCBS, which is basically what the diagram shows as well.

Columbus is interesting because it's more than just the two levels: Upper Columbus dies into Randolph to the south and Wacker to the North; Lower Columbus cuts through from Grant Park, over the river and into Streeterville; Lower Lower Columbus is primarily a service street with lower level access at grade with the LSE park. I used to have the Aqua site plan from when I worked on the building years ago; I'll scan something if I can find those drawings..

^^^^ I agree....really making full use of this site, and it's accessibility.

Very interesting hotel choices as well.

What's exciting is that I think there are probably a bunch of other brannds without a flagpole yet in Chicago that are now actively looking for an outpost as part of new development deals. Didn't you actually mention something along this line fairly recently?

I'd be surprised if both SLS and Yotel (originally looked at as options for 201 Columbus) are not currently looking. And then you have Mandarin Oriental, perhaps Shangri-La, and I'm sure at least a few others that want to establish a presence in Chicago, not to mention new independent boutique names.

One thing though about the 5ish star flags.........My guess is that as far as new development, we're more likely to see those proposals come back when the new construction condo market does........it's a natural fit to combine luxury condos with a super high end hotel, and also makes sense from a land cost perspective (and from a high-rise fan's perpective)......I mean, while the Peninsula Chicago is certainly one of the country's best hotels, I think most/all of us here would generally not like to see more of that built!

Couldn't agree more. I and many others still cut through the plaza all the time, so they might as well just connect it! Or, maybe we'll just start hopping the railing and trampling their precious dirt and plants...

Actually not so sure on the thorium...........wouldn't Magellan have done this already for all of LSE, like when the first excavated for the park, Lancaster, and Shoreham?

I'm trying to remember if they did more thorium related remediation for more recent one-offs, such as Aqua, Coast and GEMS I.......can't say for certain, but I don't specifically rmember crews doing it for these...........

Not necessarily, they might have focused on individual, active development sites instead of all of LSE because of the high cost of testing/remediation for Thorium. Then again, Jim L. has pretty deep pockets...

Not sure which one of us you were responding to, but I know of another upcoming hotel tower downtown by a Chicago based architecture firm that does not yet have a single highrise in the city. They have done some very high profile adaptive reuse and restorations here, but nothing tall and new. I can't disclose the details, but it's an exciting project. It hasn't shown up here yet.

There are a lot of brands trolling for sites here, but even more existing brands with an extant presence here that are looking to cash in further on the Chicago hotel boom. I'm still not so sure we are seeing a glut of hotel rooms yet. There will inevitably be a crash of some sort in the hotel industry here, but not until the next recession reduces demand for more rooms. The city has a pretty good self-sustaining travel boom going on.

^ Yeah, you're the one.


Interesting. Don't think I have a good guess as to firm, at least that's jumping to mind....

Oooooooh exciting!!! :cheers:

The Fairmont hotel across the street seems to stay pretty busy, and for whatever reason they use it for VIPs. Biden stayed there for the 2012 election. They blockaded all of Columbus with snow removal trucks parked sideways in the street to lock the area down. There's the Raddison inside Aqua, and the Swissotel around the corner and that giant (but aging) Hyatt Regency across the street. I think that area gets overlooked as a hotel center.

201 will be able to say "steps from Millennium Park and Maggie Daley Park".

Based on the newsletter, Reilly seems to be pretty responsive to complaints about traffic problems Randolph, like loading/unloading trucks blocking the bike lanes and clogging up the ramps. I think randolph needs to go on a major diet and become much more pedestrian friendly around Columbus if they want to cater the parks to the influx of visitors coming via LSE. No idea why the dead-ending street has to be as wide as an average freeway right there.