^ An extra 75-100 feet would have worked wonders for the tower's proportions and visual appeal, no doubt.

What?

It was a joke for when the crown just said "SALE," as if the building itself was for sale.

FYI Almost all the letters are up now. Weird space between the first 'a' and 'l' though. I don't get it.

Also a couple of the lower floors appear to be somewhat built out already. I wouldn't be surprised if some tenants start moving in Q1 of 2023.

Pretty sure those are mock-ups but could be wrong.

Other than K&E and Salesforce, only two floors are available (https://www.333wolfpoint.com/wp-cont...2022-01-27.pdf). So unless Salesforce is moving in stages, nobody is going any time soon. Salesforce only just started getting a lot of the buildout permits in October.

Here's a permit for mockups (from 8/1/22)
Self-cert: interior build out of 9 temporary offices and 3 workstations on level 32 for non-habitable office mock ups. the sole purpose of mocking up the proposed office and workstation layouts for tenant review/ reference only. the offices and workstations shall not be occupied and are not intended to remain for final occupancy. hvac shall be inactive along with the diffusers which shall be for visual representation only. there shall be no plumbing or structural work. the final tenant office layout shall be submitted under a separate permit package. (1a construction)
Permit #100977642

To be fair, I see the floors that are referred to. Looks like 7 and 8. Maybe amenity floors for salesforce? They have permits that the other floors don't, for wiring, A/V, and security, among other things.

12.11.22
https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/render...&ts=1670822286

The kerning looks off to my eye too. Perfect cherry on top for such a milquetoast design.

Yep. I concur, the kerning is a tad askew. Human error. I wonder if they'll pay to fix it because it is very embarrassing.

It's even worse in person.

I just learned what "kerning" meant after seeing Twitter Blue's 80's fever dream design. Glad I get to use the word again.

My theory is that they can't mount the letters to the white bits, so they couldn't get the 'l' over as far left as they should have.

Nice try. The "a" could have easily been moved over to the right, etc. They effed up.

Sit in the stink, Salesforce. lol

Maybe, but then they should have shifted the 's' and 'a' accordingly? I'm not holding my breathe that this ever gets fixed.

I think this is more or less on the right track. Though it's not about the "white bits", but the mounting must happen between the panels. the big letters need to be mounted on 2 sides and the l has to go directly between the panels to be mounted.

Yes, I wasn't attempting to offer an excuse. Just exploring the possible etiology of the mistake. :rolleyes:

I think that it’s just an optical illusion due to the alternating light and dark vertical stripes.

Can we please move on from the dumb letter spacing discussion?

Different question. Anyone know if the white lines on both sides will be illuminated at night? Seems like a good space to have some crown lighting.

Passifers available in the lobby.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6f747056_b.jpg

taken by TheAmericanSkyline on IG.

That's a really cool angle! Love how the Sears is in the background and how the "blue boxes" are angled and clustered.

At the base of these i like them but in this pic, what a bunch of turds bowing down to Sears.

very disappointing

Very Hudson Yards vibes.

I like this building, but it took me a second to pick it out from dropdeaded's image above. Chi-Sky really couldn't have put it better -- these boxes are nothing compared to Sears.

It's not exactly a fair comparison. Very few towers worldwide are in the same class as Sears.

I'm looking forward to when it's completely finished and this thread is closed so we can focus on the future instead of repeatedly bashing this lol :shrug:

I think its presence on the river will be excellent and the tiered lobby will be very impressive not even considering the 10/10 views. I'd rather have a functional and active building with subpar skyline appeal like this than a pretty one that fails at street level.

Of these 5 newer Skyscrapers i actually like River Point visually the most. Of the 3 Wolf Point Towers i think Wolf Point East Tower turned out the best

the reason the disappointment is so warranted for this building is that the site is arguably the most significant site in the city...you will not find another site that can compare in my opinion ... the whole wolf point development could of been a game changer with an iconic building

I noticed today the kerning issue has been corrected. Big improvement.
In a way, the flatness of the building needed something to add interest. Looks fine now

You could have made that happen by 1) Making a billion dollars on another business and 2) Offering to invest in the iconic building knowing that you would not get the return back in your lifetime.

Like I have always said, if you want to build something like that, go ahead - raise the funds and have at it. In the real world it is about making a buck in a reasonable return on investment time. Builders are not artists or charities.

Sorry, that's the way it is.

This is a handsome building and more than good enough. Now, I would probably be upset if it ended up like that brutalist junk to its north that its now helping hide ..... :)

This line of reasoning is not helpful (nor is it original tbh), and does a disservice to meaningful discourse regarding the built environment. "Well you're welcome to build your own skyscraper/airport terminal/Solider Field renovation/etc. Otherwise shut up!" C'mon now.

As if designers and their clients are above all accountability for their poor decisions because "that's the way it is." Architecture and aesthetics matter, to everyone, on both a personal and societal level.

This is exactly the type of project that should face repeated, public critical scrutiny. It's times like this I miss Blair Kamin.

^100%. We all share this city and the general public bears the joy or burden of looking at these buildings on a daily basis. The public deserves to have architecture that is visually pleasing and inspirational. Buildings are privately owned but still can be a public good. This is why concepts like historical preservation exists.

People have the right to not like something, without having to have a billion dollars of financing ready to go.

I get the gripes with the height given the prominence of the location but I think the overall quality is legit. Glass looks good from all angles and it is imposingly large in person. I don't quite get how WPE's design and finish gets love but this doesn't.

I too would have loved something 1000'+ but I think in person it turned out great.

The public has no right to decide architectural design of a private building on private property. The design of a building is expression - protected by the 1st Amendment and the people (i.e "rabble") have no right to impose a viewpoint on an artist (architect, builder) via government edict.

I would love to be able to make Mart Center go away or to be able to somehow eliminate brutalist architecture (ala 55 W. Wacker), but I don't own the property, so I can't make someone do that.

Having and expressing an opinion is just fine, but no, the public has no right to demand that private parties spend way more money on something than they willl make back in a reasonable time, nor impose an artistic direction on a private party.

For me the taper at the base kills the verticality of it and makes it look shorter than 850 should. It looks tall from the east view, probably it’s best angle. If they had just carried the top office floor up like, two more stories and created some more mass at the top a la 30 rock, this could have been really great.

Aside from the height and lack of top floor expression, the sheer glass wall looking down the river canyon leaves much to be desired.

Uh oh somebody is citing our amendment rights! So glad we can all die at the hands of those. None the less, really though, how much does it really cost them to add maybe 2 floors of glass on the top of that, nothing even in it, just steel bracing and glass. Would have made a world of difference.

Well....what's the purpose of this site if I'm following your reasoning.

Saw that Salesforce is cutting 8000 jobs. Could that change their amount of floor space in this one?

I wonder the same but am guessing so. How much space did they lease?

I mean, who even knows if this will impact their space requirements.

My friends at Salesforce are still 100 percent remote, unless meeting a client or coming in for a party or team-building thing.

as ho-hum as we are all finding this tower, I for one am nonetheless hungry for some photo updates of the base/crown/river shots... politely putting in a request from Berlin to the hometown photography heroes :-)

1/11/2023
 

Salesforce Tower lit up last night

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...267f8667_b.jpg20230111_174930 by ajdrewster, on Flickr

mediocre... shame because this site deserved a lot better

As requested:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

Great pick Dewbs. This angle had me thinking… there is still the empty lot behind River Point building. If they build a super skinny super tall there, the Y of the river can be salvaged and still look inconic. Any news on the future if that parking lot (it’s on Fulton right west of river )

Not sure the geometry of the tunnel, but the blue line runs adjacent and may curve into that lot. Tricky lot. But would have great views up the river. Would need a huge zoning variance for that FAR.

Anything tall built on The lot at halsted lake and Fulton would also feature prominently