Just re-posting the image. Does not come up for me.

http://i.imgur.com/Fib6YTGh.jpg

img src - curbed.com

w.t.

07/22/17

Windows...

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...700425/enhance

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...700521/enhance

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...700558/enhance

Well that's an improvement.

These are going to be awesome loft spaces. High ceilings, exposed brick, enormous windows.

Are those new windows still in "test" phase or are they perminent? I only ask because i figured they would fix up the facade first. But I do like the windows.

Saw those the other day and it looks like testing. I'd, personally, want to be pretty sure before ordering enough units to do every opening in that rather large building.

Well, call me impressed. My initial thought was that the sides needed a thicker upright, but then realized that they match the existing windows. Then I realized how closely they match overall, same number of panes in the same configuration, even the exact same panels to match the operable portions of the existing windows. I wonder if they actually open of it it's just for show, but in any case "solid work all around".

Its so crazy that they are just one day going to dump 2.4 million square feet of office space onto the local market. They are just quietly going about their business preparing the building for opening, no announcements have been made, no tenants have been signed from what we know. One day just BOOM 2.4 million square feet is now available. I think once this becomes available in will have a profound effect on office construction for several years.

^^It could be a mock-up, but judging by temporary protection removed from the two adjacent windows, seems like they're prepping for the next set. The building is going to look SO GOOD once the window install is complete.

I hoping for a large corporate relocation (I'm sure the developer is too). Someone with over 1 million square feet in the burbs. Trying to find 1 million + square feet in a shinny new office building downtown has to be super expensive. I would think this would be so much more affordable. There aren't many options really if you are looking to relocate 3000 or more employees.

Time and time again I see this. Getting corporations to relocate from the suburbs is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Chicago and Illinois should be focusing on acquiring new corporate HQ's from overseas, or at the very least, out of state. Hollowed out suburbs will just spell trouble for the city, time to start thinking a little differently about city/suburb dynamics, I don't see the two being mutually exclusive.

A suburb relocation is just a more realistic scenario. A large company relocating from far away would risk losing tons of employees in the process. And while the state may not gain directly from these relocations, the city and County could. You could even count less traffic and less pollution as a benefit.

Also a bunch of new housing going up very close by. Assuming there will be an entrance on the Harrison side this is literally a 5 minute walk from RiverLine.

Yes, I also expect the Post Office and Riverline should jumpstart the relatively barren area between Harrison and Roosevelt from the river to west to I-90.

If I'm not mistaken that area might be under a PMD, which seems a good candidate for rezoning at this point?

Firms are more productive in cities, so unless they're moving just for tax incentives the overall benefits almost certainly exceed the loss to the burbs. (The fact that many firms were originally lured or kept in the burbs by tax incentives only strengthens this point)

And there are already many mechanisms at the federal, state and county level that re-distribute the pie so that everyone can be better off after corporate relocations. To the extent that these are inadequate, we can come up with more revenue sharing arrangements.

I never said anything about how realistic it is. An international HQ would probably hire mostly local/regional staff anyway. That's the thing, NEW headquarters from international companies usually create jobs, not merely shift them from one place at the expense of another. For instance (while not a corporate headquarters) The Foxxcon plant in (potentially) Wisconsin, they are not laying off X amount of employees in China, they are going to hire Wisconsinites, Illinoisans, etc. NEW JOBS, not shifted jobs. My point was stripping the suburbs is an extremely short sighted strategy. Also to have any meaningful impact on traffic and pollution would take like 20 post offices full of relocations.

These may be refurbishments rather than totally new windows.

http://re-view.biz/steel-windows.php

Industrial sash windows are terrible from a thermal standpoint - and guaranteed to fail Chicago Energy Code, which is why loft conversions rarely keep them. However, the single glass panes can be replaced with small double-pane IGUs. The frames can be sandblasted and repainted with an epoxy or other product.

If Post Office team was going with a replacement plan instead of refurbishment, I doubt you'd see those thicker mullions around the operable ventilators, or operable ventilators at all... it would just be three big fixed windows mulled together, with simulated divided lite. This would give you 95% of the historic appearance, for 50% of the cost of a true steel replacement.

It's "robbing Peter to pay Paul" if you think about Peter and Paul as basically the same. If I like Paul way better and don't care much for Peter, and say, for example, he stole money from Paul in the past, I'm happier with Paul having the money.

I care a lot about the health of the metro region. I'm excited when a large HQ moves to or expands in the suburbs, like Caterpillar, Takeda or Zurich. I'm more excited when a large operation moves downtown from anywhere. That's where most businesses belong and it was temporary market distortions and externalities that led them to decamp to highway-served greenfields in the first place.

Chicago's metro is better served if infrastructure and services can be concentrated in a hub. It's easier to get employees to one central place than it is to get them to numerous sprawling sites. Having a concentration of business downtown allows us to leverage our existing assets without having to dilute or reproduce them multiple times. I prefer dense, walkable, transit oriented environments and having a tax base and employment downtown makes it easier to serve that and build more of it. For all those reasons, I'd be super jazzed if Walgreens or someone like that left a highway-offramp campus behind to rot and moved to the city, despite not being especially interested in seeing rot develop anywhere.

I'm even more thrilled at the possibility that they're the original windows, refurbished, and beautifully from the pics. I did observe some early investigation into the metal work on the South facade, so this may indeed be the case.

anyone know if they plan on making a connection to the Clinton blue line stop?