Oh btw I come into Chicago at times on either Amtrak's California Zephyr or the Southwest Chief so it will be cool coming in beneath it.:yes:

BMO expanding in Chicago and RBC (via Harris Bank) is looking to expand it's presence developing the Gateway tower in Minneapolis....Oh Canada!

I'm not following. RBC has nothing to do with Harris Bank.

Horrifying design. Terrible buildings. Chicago can do better than this....

barf.

Wished GP switched it up a little bit, I get that they have a certain style, but at this point it’s just getting repetive.

It's funny that you say that as your signature quotes the guy who believed that a universal aesthetic language could be used for every building on every site.

I think while some of the big moves on this building are the same as used at 110 N Wacker, the specific details of the base, lobby, curtainwall etc. are going to make them feel like very different buildings, especially when experienced from the street level. And 110 no longer has this 3 step massing, it's more about the way that the facade steps horizontally to follow the river.

Is it feasible that the old Florshiem building North of Union Station can be developed? Is it currently apartments or condos?

Duplicate

condos

I dont have a problem with GP buildings they are always pretty well done, and turn our nice . However they have shown that they are capable of something different (UBS, Transbay etc.) Excluding 150n Riverside, recently I’ve felt their office tower designs have been looking very similar in Chicago.

And I hope you’re right about tje details, something interesting like 150’s Curtain wall would be nice.

https://i.postimg.cc/NjZ5Ypw7/file.jpg
Looks like they are borrowing some elements from Viceroy for the facade.

Nice touch on the columns!

I didn't realize they were going to have matching column trees on both sides. Details are excellent on this one, should be a stunner haters be damned. Glad we are getting the 3 tier structure we lost on Wacker.

Also, this is going to be a big skyline changer as it's the furthest West 700'+ building in the city. From the South it will help bridge the gap to the West Loop and from the West on 290 it will fill in the space between Sears and 311.

^That is a nice touch.

I hope the contrast between light and dark window panes is as defined as the rendering shows. I also hope the two colors of glass comes out as a very dark blue and a shade of silver. No more blue glass!

EDIT: Disregard my observation. See JC's post on next page.

i love that the column "trees" now come together and touch the ground at a single point as opposed to the crisscross pattern seen in this earlier rendering below.

https://s8.postimg.cc/ffpcrme2d/image.jpg



and yes, double cool that the column trees will be on both the park and street sides of the tower! that's one dead sexy base.

I hope this development plus the post office redevelopment prompts the city to improve the Clinton blue line station. It's pretty dingy as-is.

They have a pretty big operations center in Naperville.

If you are talking about the hue differences on the faceted portion of the rendering it almost certainly is not different glass color; that is just light and shadow.

To that end, silver glass is just going to look blue anyways. Unless it has a very strong color profile most glass going to look blue in a ton of lighting conditions. Hand wringing over blue glass is pretty pointless in that regard.

Nice I am glad to see they've been refining the design. That facade is gonna look dope.

Yeah and it should have a Canal Street exit if possible. Direct office to the post office would be even better (and I think would allow covered access to Union Station as well via a platform).

IIRC the OPO and CUS train platform redesign includes a pedestrian tunnel to Clinton Station from OPO.

Ok, didn't realize that. What do they do there?

[QUOTE=spyguy;8405848]https://i.postimg.cc/NjZ5Ypw7/file.jpg

I love the way the building seems to levitate.

That appendage needs to be redesigned because it looks lazy.:notacrook:

That would be great if it’s light and shadow, much like the design of the west facade on 110 N Wacker, but judging by where the glass meets the “column trees”, it appears flush throughout.

Regarding my hand wrignging over the blue glass, I’m just envious of all the facade treatments that NYC’s boom is seeing . Silver, black, clear, bronze, terra cotta...

I'm so happy they got rid of those awkward X-braces. The V braces look way better. This building taking out the worst parking garage in downtown makes this one of the best projects of the cycle, and that's whether or not the glass is mixed between black and silver/clear

Ooh I love it

V braces might look better than X braces but from a engendering view point there are too many stresses on the mid V sections unless there is a thick steel I beam headers above the pic to alleviate that.
But even a thick header does not explain the lack of support at all 4 corners of the building unless the core is taking the load and it is just a cantilever building.

One should not put stresses in the middle of the V without making them worthy of the load.

IMO There has to be an unseen component of those Y braces from the top from prevent them from buckling the Y braces from expanding outward.


We wont know the real details and may never will unless someone has blueprints. But I am sure that it is compensated because no firm would do such a thing taking esthetics over form and function if it was not 300 years safe. But the pic looks unstable from the perspective of a lay viewer.

You just can't get away from downward and outward pressure on a V triangle brace in the middle if it is not mitigated and I am sure it will be but the pics do not show the beefing up needed.








The more I look at the pic the more I see the core handling down pressure and it being a cantilever building and the outside supports are just flourish unlike the JHC building that needed X braces for function alone.

I'm not following all of this. The triangle sections can easily be supported at the midpoint in an invisible fashion because there is a whole floor structure to brace them right there. The corners are only 25' cantilevers, which is not out of the range of possibility, especially if there is a hanger coming down from the nearest corner column above. A lot of buildings omit the corner supports as you can more efficiently do a half bay cantilever and have corner offices without a column.

And the serrated curtainwall appears to be real, versus an applied pattern as you can see the profile reflected in the edge of the cantilever's ceiling.

^I see it now. Thanks. Going to be beautiful.

This is now redundant I suppose; in case others aren't sure you can see the folds in the glass along the lobby ceiling and angular shadows where the column trees span the folded glass. As spyguy noted, quite viceroy like.

these really aren't structural "V"'s, the architects just haven't chosen to represent any of the horizontal structure architecturally (also commonly referred to as floors ;) which are indeed cantilevered at the corners)

Bob could have also just kept it to BMO, as they are also anchoring a new building in downtown Milwaukee.....

Same....that’s my favorite part as well. GP does fine work, and the details will be nice....it will likely be a nice, well-executed tower in its own right....however they’re repetitive af and I’d be fine with going a decade without another new GP office tower downtown after this one.....frankly, part of the reason I’m looking forward to Salesforce Tower so much is that it’s not designed by GP. (That and judging by how PCP’s neighboring WPE is shaping up, it’s likely going to be very sharp as well).

I am dubbing this the World Wide Web building due to it being impossible to not see WWW in the bracing after you notice it.

Maybe they are upside down BMO insignias

It would be cool if the v shapes continued up the building instead of straightening out. Oh well. Interesting base boring everything else.

You hit it right on the head. This tower is repetitive and banal. Chicago is not innovating the next generation of towers. NYC is doing that with the silver, black, clear, bronze, and terra cotta. At the very least, wouldn't it be great if they used bronze mullions on this tower? Blue and silver is already so sterile and cold. With our winters we could use some warmth in our buildings and diverse textures. :(

You seem to be overlooking the simple fact that the support structure can go well underneath street level...

It could have been more interesting I guess but I love the last rendering. The facade and lobby look really cool, and I'm digging the purple ish-color

I'm getting vibes of West Virginia. Country roads. Mountain mama. West Virginia. Take me home. To the place. I belong.

According to Mr. D, there will be a reserved pathway through this building's underground garage using the old Amtrak garage connection.

After that, it's up to CDOT to build a one-block tunnel under Clinton to the Blue Line mezzanine. Ideally that would also include an elevator down to the CTA platforms. If we're lucky, the state office building along Clinton has a basement that can accommodate a passageway. Or maybe Gov. Pritzker will decide to tear down that ho-hum building and sell to developers, instead of the Thompson Center.

^Yes! Now that would be a win for everyone!

The pedestrian outlook for both Clinton and Van Buren looks dire. These stupid plinth parks seemingly always come at the expense of the pedestrian experience.

^ I kind of agree. Why are they doing an elevated park again?

They still need to put tons of parking underground, so that has to do with it I'd imagine.

Oh gross it's raised? That ruins this tower. The city needs to put it's foot down. If you want the handout then put the fucking parking underground. This should be a plaza adjoining the bus station which would greatly increase the pedestrian experience around Union Station. Instead it's a little fortress that doesn't do shit except give the office workers a nice smokers Outpost.

It only looks raised at the NW corner where the garage entrance is. The walking paths slope down to street level at Van Buren and Clinton. The Van Buren pedestrian experience looks fine. Clinton gets a grassy knoll and then a garage entrance, then the CTA bus station. So Clinton already isn't a pleasant stroll with the busses coming in. Might as well put the garage entrance there and slope the park up onto it.

Edit: How old is that bus station? It's there in Google streetview, but the satellite image still shows a parking lot north of the parking garage.

opened 2016

^ I was sort of thinking that the bus turnaround had something to do with why they elevated the park on that side. Usually the elevated parks that were built with office towers this cycle were done so due to some sort of ground level infrastructure.

But I do hope this is designed well and that it slopes down the way they depict it, otherwise it will really be a useless park

Wait a minute, I thought that there was regulations against corporate logos on chicago buildings????