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????

I'm not sure but several have them...

Chase, Boeing, Nuveen, Salesforce (future) and probably a few others.

They passed an ordinance after the Trump Tower Sign. The signage can get larger in square footage the higher they are placed on the building and the sign holder has to employ X amount of people in the building.

Also they amended this ordinance for Salesforce so they could have a larger sign on the new tower.

Really hate the thought of more signage on buildings downtown.

It's on virtually every building here in Denver and it's a total eyesore.

Dallas has "eyebrow signage" where tenants will put their logo HALFWAY up the building. It looks so, so awful, and I hope Chicago never does it.

I can't think of a single sign on a building in Chicago that irks me except for the Trump building. Does the Trump stamp count as "eyebrow signage"?

there's nothing in chicago as bad as milwaukee's US Bank center's billboards that block fazlur's expressed belt trusses at the top of the building, but there are still some awkward sign retrofits atop chicago skyscrapers that are somewhat clumsy in my opinion, such as the chase sign on top of chase tower and the kemper sign on top of the kemper building.

when architects specifically leave a blank area at the top of a tower for a corporate name/logo, as with the prudential building or the boeing building, the result doesn't seem quite so clumsy.

Trump Tower sign irritates me because of where it's located on the building, and because the font is just so tacky. I was also super pissed when Chase put a sign on the First National Bank of Chicago building. It just wrong for the design of that building, which should just be unadorned. The Loew's sign doesn't bother me because I think the font is nice and the way it sits on the building. Hate the Nuveen sign on 333 W. Wacker.

I could go on and on. Though I generally dislike signs on buildings because it seems so 2nd or 3rd tier city, if the design and placement are well thought out and act as an adornment to the building, I give them a pass.

Oh, and I like big effing neon giants from the early 20th century - https://www.flickr.com/photos/rock_c...ku/43501085501

I guess NYC is a second/third tier city :koko:

I could be mistaken but don't believe NYC allows corp signs atop buildings any longer - since maybe the 60s. MetLife would be a grandfathered example.