I'm so f'n down with a casino in this building. If done right, it would only take one floor, and likely be so much better than the POS rivers casino. It would attract tourists like crazy, a little bit of riff raff, but mostly people with money who are either living in the city or visiting the city. The rest of the building could be used for office space, and the idea of creating a transit center of some kind is awesome. Point being, there are many possibilities for this building, and the increased amenities on the southern canal corridor as well as incoming residential development in the south loop makes this more viable than ever for redevelopment. I'm optimistic

All of this casino talk is pointless. It isn't going to happen. We know what is going to happen, the new owner has told us. It isn't a casino.

An art deco casino is like something out of the movies.

With some real forward movement with the OPO over the last few days it really does shape up a wild month. Finally real plans for the old Cook County Hospital. Imminent starts for Wanda, Riverline, and WP East. Finally some activity to speak of at dormant sites at Nordstroms and old Rezko river lot. An imminent design decision and location likely coming on the Obama library and Lucas possibly moving.

What other major news am I msising I can't think of. What a month or so.

I will put my prediction down, McDonalds Chicago HQ will here. We could hear an announcement of their intentions to move downtown in the summer

+1

I would imagine we'll hear something from Related on their plans for the Spire site in the not too distant future.

I don't think the timing is right for McDonald's. My money would be them moving into Sears sometime in 2017 with an announcement within the next 3 months. Walgreens is a potential for the Post Office though.

I doubt any large company would make it it's HQ. It would be best as something similar to Merchandise Mart, many many tenants of different sizes. Granted it will take twenty years for it to be like MM (it will take quite a while to fill that much space with smaller tenants) and it wouldn't likely have an industry of one type (even MM isn't that so much anymore).

Having more tenants of smaller sizes would make the building more stable financially long term and keep occupancy up. MM has never really had major problems with un-rented space, which older buildings can have. Having a large company make its HQ there would be flashy, but they would never stay long, and then you got a huge empty space again. Face it, large corporations still prefer new construction for HQ's.

The old Post Office would be great space for back office operations, company data centers, startups, call centers and small tech firms. Yeah, nothing flashy, but it would make for a profitable building. And it would fill it, and keep it mostly full.

Let's not overestimate how much of the Mart is tech—or office space of any kind. Without CoStar access, I'll guesstimate somewhere around 250,000 square feet is any kind of office space.

The old post office is 10 times that.

Your estimate on office space is almost certainly completely wrong - I don't think think you're even in the ballpark.

I worked for a company there which had an entire lower floor. If there are 18 floors, not counting the tower, that's about 200,000 square feet per floor. And that was one firm - a tech firm - and that was 10 years ago. The amount of tech in the Mart has only grown since then. 1871 alone takes up 115,000 square feet, too. That's eclipsing your 250,000 number with just *2* firms - CCCIS and 1871. And then thre's GoHealth and Moto Mobility Yelp and others. And isn't ConAgra locating there? That's not a tech firm, but it is a 200,000 square foot office lease. It's easy to forget that the Mart has 4 million square feet just in the original building and over 2 million more in the Apparel Mart. I'm sure that office uses presently account for over a million square feet of space, perhaps more, and that a decent chunk of that is tech firms.

ConArga leased 170,000 square feet. Office leases in the low 1M range sound about right but I haven't bothered to add them all up. From the investments Vornado is making in the common area amenities their target market is clearly more office tenants of the HQ and tech varieties.

You are way off. It is somewhere near 3.7 Million is office and if I were to guess around 2M SF is Tech.

1871 has 41,000 RSF
ConAgra has 168,000 RSF
Brain Tree has 58,000 RSF
Yelp has 60,000 RSF
GoHealth has 90,000 RSF
CTU has 48,000 RSF

Motorola Mobilty has 604,000 RSF (200,000 SF of that they have up for sublease in which VelocityEHS takes 91,000 RSF)

Plus Discovery Chicago, MSL Group and Razorfish all have large leases too.

Those are just to name a few and the building has an additional 243,864 SF available for lease

I think those two actually have over double those numbers.

From what I've heard in my company there aren't any large blocks of floorspace available in Sears (we were looking since my company is doubling our workforce in the Tower).

+razorfish, saatchi + saatchi, braintree

Speculation time....I wonder what gym brand they have in mind or even locked up. From the sound of it it seems like a major component of the plan. I would love for it to be East Bank Club. I've read that the upkeep on their River North property is very expensive and I'm sure they could sell that lot for an ungodly price that could hold a number of condo/apartment towers once the building was scrapped. Or maybe Lifetime Fitness would decide its a perfect location to finally go urban.

- Also I wonder what is in mind for the south east lot where the annex building is. It would have near perfect north views of the South Branch. It would provide a great bookend similar to River Point, Wolf Point, and Trump. Maybe they will not invest too heavily into the landscaping if there is any idea for a highrise (or supertall) in mind for the lot.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...517-story.html


The saga continues. Apparently Davies was dead for five days before the deal closed and his death was reported about 24 hours prior to the closing.

If 601W is following the template set by 600 W Chicago, it could be another David Barton Gym.

I think East Bank Club is unlikely, as it was/is founded by the owner of Habitat partly to boost the value of their land holdings in western River North. If they moved the club, it would have a negative impact on Habitat's rental properties.

Right now, it just shows a plaza. It's a bad site for office due to access challenges, you can't get into the site except from the south but the Metra and CTA stations are to the north and east. I suppose you could solve this with some kind of second floor concourse in the Post Office like the Mart has, or you could build a pedestrian bridge over Congress.

From their rendering, it looks like there will be a path under Congress by the river's edge. Some sort of split street/river level lobby would make that a nice way to walk to work from the metra stations.

I think it would be great to see something developed there eventually (maybe a business cycle or two down the road), and would not want to see anything done that ruled that out. But on the other hand, I think the Old Post Office itself should be the current focus, and I'm pretty happy with what they've shown so far in their renderings. There's not much point distracting from the business at hand with talk of a tower that might or might not happen a decade or more from now.


One thing that occurs to me is that when the Post Office and Riverline are done, we'll have a river side pedestrian path all the way from Roosevelt up past the confluence. Assuming River City is integrated into Riverline's riverwalk, the only gap will be the block north of the Post Office next to 300 N Riverside. It would behoove 300 N Riverside's owners, the city, and that block's neighbors on the river plaza to work together to make sure that final gap is bridged.

I doubt his heirs would want to give back $130 million in order to get back a derelict asbestos-filled building. But if for some reason they did, it could become an issue.

this whole thing is just bizaree

I know there would be legal/transfer hiccups regarding the time of his death.

If it was a simple power of attorney and the family decides to not support the sale there could be issues as both US and British law ends power of attorney at death. Generally speaking if someone acting under power of attorney has not yet been notified of the death, then their actions are still valid, however I suspect that provision mostly protects them individually from accusations of misconduct and doesn't completely protect the result of any deals they've signed against being contested by the heirs.

If "power of attorney" was shorthand for what was actually something set up in trust form then it may not matter. Some trusts survive death. There's probably not enough public details about exactly how everything was structured for anyone to make a truly educated guess as to how this will play out but I suspect we'll find out within a month or so whether there will be any disputes.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...20-column.html

New plan for old post office has better chance of delivering than past flops

May 20, 2016

^whatever, Kamin is still and always will be a tool... idiot! Sad.

The plazas depicted there are likely little more than placeholders quickly thrown together for the news release. That is my hope at least...

The ChicagoDPD twitter account shared a couple more pictures from 601W:

http://i.imgur.com/KvlYs92.png

http://i.imgur.com/FrzGBBc.png

This space is just crying out to be a hotel lobby. Was turning the north tower into a boutique hotel ever part of a discussion?

Looks like the East Bank Club. Actually this won't ever happen but it would be amazing if the East Bank Club moved to the Old Main Post Office and its land was redeveloped.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/cou...n-post-office/

From the rendering it looks like the lane on the north side of the bridge doesn't continue through the building, or is drastically reduced.

^Just an illusion with the way the sound wall is curved.

It does seem as if the pedestrian walkways to the north and south of the Congress tunnel will be restored, though, and a connection under Congress next to the river.

Sadly it doesn't sound like there is some awesome Chelsea Market-style destination planned for the building, but I'll be glad if they improve the way the building interfaces with its surroundings.

Yes please, hopefully this project will result in a widened or improved pedestrian right of way on the East side of Canal encouraging the area South of Congress to develop. I could see them doing something really cool by eliminating the current vertical wall along the street and replacing it with a huge "spanish steps" style gradient from the underpass level up to the lobby level of the building all the way along Canal. They could have it intersected by various ramps and flower beds a la the furthest West part of the riverwalk that is currently open. It would really increase access to their property and it's phenomenal lobby as well as providing a public benefit by greatly improving the streetscape. It would also provide an area for the huge numbers of workers who will inhabit this structure to spread out and relax or eat lunch.

Given that Gensler is the architect, I'm sure they will find all sorts of great ways to improve the property, hopefully there is something in the budget for doing something creative to the horrendous way Canal is currently treated. Also, if my suggestion were implemented, it would generate a huge amount of street facing retail space along the base which would probably provide a significant windfall to the owners since ground floor office doesn't rent for nearly as much as upper floors and retail tends to rent for more than office to begin with.

I'm dreaming about the evenings when this building is all lit up at night. Rejoice!

Yes indeed. It will be very impressive, especially driving in from the west.

You know I never really thought of the impact this redevelopment will have at night. It's almost like a giant light bulb will light up on this street and thought it's sides. Driving from thy west will look amazing.

Cool idea, but I don't think it's possible. The east half of Canal Street sits atop railroad tracks (you can see an expansion joint down the middle if you look closely). Just behind that "vertical wall" is Track 2 of Union Station.

They could certainly landscape that area better however, maybe ramp it up and over the Eisenhower and then back down. You could do something really graceful and minimal like the Art Institute's pedestrian bridge, but with seating and plantings so it feels like a linear park. Originally there would have been a pretty cool westward vista down the expressway, but now I think it'll be blocked by the new upper-level ramp at the Circle.

I wonder if the [Sterling Bay] redevelopment of the Union Station garage will have any effect on the Post Office redevelopment, being right across the street.

I just hope they don't mess this one up. Such a prominent iconic building with so much potential. Should be magnificent if done properly.

Or, the question might be "I wonder if the Post Office redevelopment will impact/boost any development potential over at Union Station?" They're both only proposed projects at this stage - actually, 601 W Cos already owns its site, while Sterling Bay very much does not right now.....

Sounds like the first renovation permit has come through. :cheers:

http://chicago.curbed.com/2016/10/6/...ovation-begins

October 6, 2016

http://i.imgur.com/VskZN2D.jpg

Cmon guys, this is worth a :banana:

Well that was fast, amazing what happens when you don't have a total schmuck owning the building. They do deserve a banana for this!

:dancing:

Update: Shortly after publishing this story, a SkyscraperPage forum member shared an image of what appears to be a group of workers already getting started on the job. Crews are wasting no time on getting the Old Post Office cleaned up.

I'm guessing that's exploratory work. It will take a long time if they're using a portable power washer, pvc bucket and 4' ladder for the real job!