Aw man i'll be so moist if they move downtown. That'd be killer.

I hope Walgreens and other large companies are listening. I'm not a picketer either but would immediately discontinue my business with them. I know this is trailing off topic but most of this thread has been wild speculation anyway

#boycottwalgreens was gaining some momentum on the twitter. I'm sure they have some social media liaison/ass pipe who listens. I tweeted that I would drop my boycott, even if they were strong armed into staying. It's a great precedent.

While he does come off as some sort of cartoonishly evil archvillain from a comic or movie, there's a difference between everthing you've stated (which I think is mostly true) and an actual physical HQ move for a combined company that derives probably something like 75%+?? of revenues on the ground here in the US......

Damn, Back to being a dream
 

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...-with-sterling


:yuck: Come on really???!!

What an idiot. There's no way he'll get this done on his own. Sterling Bay was a first class ticket to success.

He couldn't have possibly imagined a better scenario for him - having Sterling Bay fall into his lap like that. This was indeed his golden ticket, and he just flushed it down the toilet.

This guy is simply not a real player in real estate development......that of course has been clear since he won the auction.....

:facepalm:

This is eternally frustrating. How long until Davies burns the whole thing down for the insurance money?

I don't think he ever intended to develop the property. His motive for entertaining these proposals was simply to create a nice sales brochure.

I am just excited that this thread was bumped with actual news, and not someone asking when this tower was going to break ground...

^^ Most certainly true. He doesn't remotely have what it takes as far as actual development. No track record for large, complex, mixed-use development whatsoever. What's funny is he didn't even have nice renderings - 'sales brochurey stuff' put together. First Booth Hansen (surely they knew what was going on here with this guy - maybe they 'threw' the designs they "threw" together, because they were pretty bad - certainly uncharacteristically bad for that firm), and then Antunovich, which was being, well, "Antunafish" per usual........


People need to forget about the fanciful dreams for the adjacent land parcels and start solely focusing on adaptive re-use of the building itself - the other stuff was just a mis-direct. Sterling Bay's plan offered this necessary focus, credibility, the experience, etc etc necessary to get this done.....but this yahoo screwed his chances....

^ Yep. Davies needs to go away

Wow. Davies is a first class moron. This news has seriously ruined my day.

I find that hard to believe if Sterling's offer really was double his investment and likely an opportunity to participate in future development in some way financially. Doubling your money plus upside in five years may not be up there with the best hedge fund returns, but it's certainly not small either. I think it's more likely that he's simply a really rich guy who sees no reason to rush things even though it costs the City of Chicago a fair bit of opportunity cost because maybe he'll fall into an opportunity to actually do something enormous there and get all the credit for it then. I think a lot of unheard-of but fantastically rich people like the idea of using their money just to play with big things at their own pace.

Use eminent domain to transfer this over to a serious developer. Simply based on the fact that this is a deteriorating landmark warrants it. I'd give Davies another year to show intent to develop or sell, and if no, eminent domain his ass.

Deleted. Wrong thread

There is a highway going through it. I bet that would help.

Just where is the city going to come up with $40M to purchase the building?

Admittedly, the city is pursuing eminent domain against General Mediterranean for Riverside Park. But that's a far larger site that demands careful planning and probably demands a thorough public process. The city can also add value by building infrastructure like the Wells-Wentworth Connector and parkland, and maybe even make money on the thing. The Post Office only covers two blocks, not 18, and success or failure there is not crucial.

might not be crucial but GOD is it a blight!

nuts to purchasing. just take it.

Are you aware of how eminent domain works? The government still has to pay the owner.

Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution
The opportunity for the city to get the building for free died when the Post Office decided to sell it.

I think the only hope is continuous media ridicule of Davies until he realizes it's not worth the trouble and sells it. He passed up a 625% return on his investment when Sterling Bay offered $150m for it, so I don't know if he can be reasoned with.

Maybe SB could team up with another developer to raise enough cash to make a deal.

This whole thing makes me angry. Woooo-sahhh.

Sterling Bay was going to put in $150M of capital investment, that wasn't an offer to purchase.

I'm guessing Sterling Bay wanted to do something basic - large floorplate office and parking - and Davies rejected this vision because he still wants to build some kind of futuristic mixed-use arcology.

At least there trying :haha:

https://www.bidclerk.com/project/1659108.html

Dead
 

Why are we still talking about this , this project is dead, thread should be remove.

What is this mess? :koko:

The Crain's article, citing sources close to the deal, clearly stated Sterling Bay offered to buy the property from Davies for $150 mil. Are you stating that you know that is not factual?

At any rate,

Imagine a world in which either the Post Office wasn't auctioned off until the last few couple years, or another in which Sterling Bay had risen to its present prominence as far as visionary W Loop adaptive re-use 5 or 6 years ago. In either world, there is probably a half-decent chance Sterling Bay might now be the present owner of the post office, and we'd have never heard the name of this screwball Davies in Chicago......

A shame.....

the part of this "proposal" that involved fantastical supertall towers was never alive to begin with.

something will eventually be done with the old post office hulk, and this will remain the thread to discuss that eventuality.

Nope, just working from a less reputable source than Crain's.

If Crain's says Sterling Bay tried to buy the Post Office outright, I'll believe them.

Should the supertall in the site's diagram be changed to stale proposal or cancelled?

It should be changed to fantasy, as that's all it ever was.

New York's example makes the most sense for Old Post Office
 

the Moynihan Station. With a boost from stimulus funds, the old Farley Post Office will be redeveloped into a train station in New York City.

http://discoveringurbanism.blogspot....ice-reuse.html

we need that extra rail capacity, desperately!

Moynihan isn't adding any extra rail capacity, it gets Amtrak riders/operations out of Penn station.

point is that done correctly, Chicago could.

As per the usual, this is the only activity we ever see here :( :

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...125-story.html

^ Plan B?? Or, rather, C....or D??

How would this work with an active freeway under the building? subway?

I have an idea: turn the damn thing back into a post office

would be great if there wasnt a giant modern facility which rendered it obsolete next door

^and which is now mostly vacant as well. No mail processing is taking place in Chicago any more. Some of the space is being used for carrier routes who have moved out of the Loop facility.

So are we bound to soon have 2 massive, abandon former post offices right next to each other?

same way the PO functioned with the active expressway, quite well. . .

the eisenhower exp. is somewhat elevated. besides there seems to be plenty of space on either side which rail passengers would not necessarily have to straddle the exp; passengers could flow above/below that cut. the tracks (metra/amtrak) are already in place at ground level. the subway of course, is 40 ft. below. . . .

i contacted robert munson of urbanophile, who has much expertise in rail station analysis, and suggested this. he agreed its a great idea to turn the old PO into a transit center though he said he'd look into the actual feasibility of doing so. btw, this is in no way an original concept, it had been proposed as far back as when the new PO opened, and was attached to some type of casino deal, i believe.

besides this building is so large, it could handle multi-purpose re-use and still have space left over. . .

After all that talk about how Novak should have been nailed harder for knocking down that cottage without permits, it's really situations like this which the city should save it's penalties for. The city should massively fine Davies for this fire breaking out. Leaving buildings sit empty is a massive drag on the rest of the city not only in terms of the broken window effect, but also in terms of city resources. He should have to pay for every dime the Fire Department and emergency services spent responding to this fire and then be assessed a fat fine on top of it. Same goes for other landmarked white elephant buildings around the city like the Uptown Theater. If you are going to squat on a historically valuable property and allow it to decompose, then you should be massively fined for any incidents that occur while it is under your watch.

Hopefully this would have a "shit or get off the pot" effect on some of these land bankers.

^ Nah. The city abuses property owners enough as it is. I think our out of proportion high property taxes are enough

I can kinda sorta see your point of view on the Post Office seeing as the Sterling Bay deal should have happened and was a squandered opportunity.

With Uptown Theater I don't because there was no funded viable plan put forth put forth to renovate it. I live in Uptown and I personally think in time it will happen but its just not its time yet. All the momentum is in the right direction.

In general, not just talking about mega developers, but property owners in general (because laws are for everyone) if you start enacting some type of penalty for vacancy these properties will eventually go ownerless and eventually meet the wrecking ball, on taxpayer's dime or more likely sit vacant and continue dilapidate due to lack of funds for demolition.

No one is going to pay penalties on properties that aren't making them money, I think a vacancy tax/fine/penalty is a misguided policy and would not have the intended result. Also regardless if the property is vacant Davies pays taxes on it and those taxes pay for the fire service that every taxpayer is entitled to.

True, but a penalty for having a non-functional standpipes in an enormous building in such a built-up area should be severe enough to spur action and get the building's fire suppression systems at least functional, or else this is a disaster waiting to happen.

This I can support maybe a penalty depended on the size of the building if there was a fire code violation. I can even, although barely, support there being a responsibility to pay the Fire Department's expenses or a fee if there was a fire code violation withstanding.

Crain's is reporting today that Davies is putting the building up for sale, having hired a London-based broker - the article claimed that they don't know how much he'll be asking for it, but apparently, he rejected a $150 million offer earlier this year.

This guy is a total POS - he got the building at auction, for less than half of his winning bid and he thinks he can get $150M?? It's gonna cost that much just to fix all of the massive issues within the building, let alone develop it into something worthwhile.