^ Thanks for posting. Hadn't seen that doc yet. This one is a bit on the frustrating side waiting for.......I just wonder why (if it's indeed the case right now still) why Magellan can't nail down its hotel flags for this project.......there is no shortage of hotels brands looking to expand or plant a flag in downtown Chicago......further, LSE is in a little bit of a strange point right now - and it has been for the past 1-2 years......that being, it's an odd point in the cycle to not have any resi and/or hotel projects under construction in this development.....I mean, how long has it been since Coast has been completed - or even since it reached 90-95% occupancy? If you're Magellan, you can't be exactly pleased with yourself that the period between delivery of Coast and the delivery of the next project after that (obviously not counting GEMS here) - which still figures to be this one (not Vista) - will be, like, maybe 5 years?? In a big expansion cycle?? Trust me, that's not a good result, and for me it's a bit of a head-scratcher, quite frankly.....

Site "O" did come up several times last evening at the big Vista Tower community meeting. Unfortunately nothing really new or revealing.

I was correct in thinking that somehow "O" was part of the changes related to Vista and overall LSE PD that will go to Plan Commission/City Council starting next month......apparently a little height allowance is being shaved off "O" to allow for a little extra at Vista. I think 680' or so was allowed at "O".......hopefully they are only going to go down to 640' or so here, and bare minimum I'd say 600'.....anything below that would just seem silly to me at this particular location........also mentioned was that there will be a public vertical connection added in the form of an elevator from Upper Columbus level down to LSE park level at parcel "O"

Still, frustrating and disappointing that Magellan seems to be - for no good reason, at least from a market standpoint - spinning its wheels a bit with this significant and important development.........who knows - perhaps after LSE PD changes go through the entitlement process, this one might also see movement by spring '16??

One other thing I want to stress: Magellan continues to claim that they are not going back for more overall square footage at LSE. They continue to assert that they are going to keep it to an additional 2.7 mil. sq ft. (after Vista's 1.6 mil. sq ft). My guess is that "O" would be 700-800k sq ft total.....and that would leave 1.9-2 mil sq ft for the remaining residential towers at the E end/NE corner of LSE...............I'm not convinced they want some sort of trophy tower at the NE corner - I could be wrong of course - but if they do, I do not see any other scenario other then Magellan needing to go back for a PD amendment and get more sq ft at that time - and thus going directly back on their repeated word this year.............if this is really their plan, then why would they be so adamant right now that they are not going to be asking for an increase? It's not as if the public has been pressuring them on that issue (at least as far as what has been visible to me).............that's why I maintaining I think it's at least 50% as far as probability there is not going to be some sort of trophy/supertall/focal point at the NE................on the other hand, there's also, I suppose a chance they could design some sort of very slender, very tall building for that corner............

One wonders why anything less than a supertall would even be considered for the site. And I'd hope going out with a whimper (relative to potential) would be frowned upon by those in office.

Sam's right. ^^ it's a planned development. they are grandfathered, but they don't want any chance of getting hit with things like the affordable housing requirement if they increase the number of units beyond what's already been approved. So they get around that by chopping part of one building off and sticking it on top of this one. Instant height with no possible penalty

They might be throwing caution to the wind for a couple of reasons:

1, just not worrying about being called out a few years down the road, and

2, not having to answer too many questions about what might be blocking Vista's views in the future

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I think their current strategy makes perfect sense.

It could take another 15-20 years for them to be ready for the NE parcel. At that point they could just sell it to somebody else and let them worry about upzoning, affordable requirements, etc. They will get their money out of LSE one way or the other.

Furthermore I'm not that convinced that the NE parcel is all that desirable anyway. At least I personally wouldn't want to live there.

I buy a condo in a well-designed architecturally significant supertall with guaranteed lake/river views for eternity. But that's just me... :shrug:

Doubly true for the rich who prioritize the view over the inefficient location (with respect to accessing the whole city easily - half of your vicinity is water), and the same applies to hotel clients who are provided amenities and where the location is more desirable from a tourist's eyes.

there needs to be an el stop in the new east side area and at navy pier, and the park, and the museum campus.
we should work at removing buses as much as possible.

A few billion $... and done.

...

Remain. Height for site O was originally about 800'.

Look up The Loop Connector project.

I will bump this 2.5 year old thread because of Hydrogen's post in the

CHICAGO | Highrise Projects & Construction, v7



Certainly interesting news.

what's the likely ballpark height calculation based on what's been released

Well the way the other diagram in the Chicago Highrises thread showed the building sizes relative to lot and with this having 600+apartments and 600+ hotel rooms I could see it being over 700+ feet, especially if it as thin as it appeared. Would be very surprised if it was bigger than 900 feet.

The notice from the Alderman's letter stated that Parcel O will include up to 640 residential dwelling units and two hotels with up to 626 keys. The original proposal from 2014 or 2015 had a count of 574 apartments and 684 hotel rooms. Seems like the new version will be slightly taller but not much more than the original.

Which is crazy (and a bit of a shame) given how many units and rooms that is.

I know, right? Like, how big are those apartments going to be? And the hotel rooms? Optima II (AKA Signature) has about 500 apartments but appears to be much bigger than this thing which somehow crams in an addition 600 hotel rooms. What kind of origami is going on here?

Recall that the Marquee at Block 37 was able to fit 700 units for a 400 ft tower. It wouldn't be too difficult to image a 700 ft tower with 640 units and 626 hotel rooms.