Agree - It would be exciting and valuable to have a major top tier tech presence in the Loop.

The Thompson center was supposed to symbolize transparent government, but instead it may become Alphabet's panopticon. Love it.

Interesting stuff from the developer:

Can Mike Reschke save the Loop?
Hope for a downtown real estate revival rests on the veteran developer's shoulders.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...n-chicago-loop

Can you please stop posting articles that folks cannot access.

Work harder and make more money idk

Hmmm. As Northwestern physician I kinda thought I was already doing well. I guess not.

Or, and here's an idea, don't.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thereal...naissance/amp/

I’m not going to pin this on just Indiana, but these people think living an hour from Chicago and watching the local news is enough for them to be experts online about the city. It’s obnoxious nonsense much of the time.

Why are we unable to access the article?

Or do you mean that you're just too cheap to pay for journalism?

No. He means we, yes we, are unable to access the article.

I appreciate the links even if they are not accessible to all for free. It's not some sort of powerplay to flex your crains subscription lol. It's probably the most relevant publication to this website forum.

Turns out this is actually a mid 2000s website forum and NOT a federally protected space where everything must be 100% accessible to all.

Please explain in what way we're "unable to access the article." What error message do you get?

Or do you mean it in the same sense that we're also "unable to access" the Sunday brunch buffet at the Peninsula Hotel?

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...hompson-center

Ok, it's official, Google is buying the Thompson Center. Reschke is still going to handle the renovations.

Big news, potentially exciting.

Bringing Google to Chicago's Thompson Center

https://blog.google/inside-google/co...ompson-center/

Wow. I guess this whole situation turned out better than expected...

"And I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords."


But kidding aside, great news for the building, and the Loop in general.

I dig it. This is a big sign of confidence in the Loop in an era of ghost town CBDs. Hopefully a sign of more investment to come!

Salesforce tower on Wolf Point and now Google in the Loop. Wow things change fast!

great news on google.

but what happened to the other guy who was going to buy and renovate? did he just get booted?

also google is saying it cost them $100 million but I though the other guy was going to pay like $250 million? maybe that higher number included the renovation?

edit: crains is saying that guy (whatever his name is) is still going to renovate the building for google so I guess he is still involved

I'm happy the Thompson Center will be saved, but it's intended as a piece of public architecture, not the local palace of our corporate-tech overlords. I liked the original Reschke plan because the state would move back into the building at the end, but the public spaces could be renovated more creatively.

Now Google is taking the city's grandest interior rotunda, our local PoMo outpost of the Illinois State House, and the state is moving to a buttoned-up corporate tower on LaSalle St where bureaucrats get to hide themselves away anonymously. It's the cheapening of our public space, just like the Old Post Office getting substituted with a lowrise shitbox in the 90s and eventually becoming the local palace of Uber. Or the beautiful concourse of Union Station getting torn down for an ugly office tower and turning the station into a cramped rabbit warren. We get the urbanism we deserve, I guess - it's just sad.

(fwiw, the Harris Bank complex on LaSalle is a great piece of modernism, it's just not public-spirited the way JRTC is)