No, the Circle project includes reconstruction of I-290 as far east as the west edge of Canal, including the offramps at Canal.

Unfortunately this does not include any streetscaping, plaza space, etc under the viaduct but the new piers will be somewhat decorative and there will be new lighting installed that should make the area beneath the highway more inviting at night.

There was a building permit issued last week, for $5M, for this:

"INTERIOR RENOVATION OF EXISTING SPACE AT LEVEL 2 & 4+5E FOR MARKETING OFFICE & SPEC OFFICE SUITE. (STRUCTURAL PEER REVIEW)**CERTIFIED CORRECTIONS- - SUBJECT TO FIELD INSPECTIONS & AUDIT "

Is this both an actual company building out and 601W having an actual tenant already, or just all spec? It does mention specifically marketing office

Pretty sure it's just the spec suite and some common areas. Spec suite/ marketing on 4+5E and level 2 might be stuff near the lobby.

https://i.imgur.com/22aFNath.jpg

Took a picture of the North-East corner of the building today. You can see how the floors in the Northern block of the building don't match up with the East section. It's easy to tell by the condition of the windows that the 2nd floor, which is connected to the lobby as some sort of mezzanine is part of that permit.

Then in the North section, you've got the 4th floor with the nice looking windows, and then further south on the eastern face of the building you have 5E with it's windows looking new and shiny.

Da mayor is supposedly doing his big reveal today

Inside the Old Main Post Office, a $500 million 'blank canvas'
Ryan Ori | Contact Reporter | Chicago Tribune
September 27, 2017, 10:25 AM

If memory serves, there are four different buildings within what we call the Old Post Office. There's the office tower with lobby on Van Buren, the Terminal Building (from a decade earlier) facing east, and the workroom sections to the west and south along Harrison, with other floor levels because of the loading docks. Office tower is probably 12-foot ceilings, workroom areas 20-to-24-foot ceilings, and the Terminal something in between.

Interesting to hear 601 talk about teaming up with Riverside for a bid.

From what I've seen from the inside, you are correct. I'm interested to see how the division of the different floors and possibly tenants shakes out.

Looks like your link got broken somehow. Heres the actual link:

Inside the old main post office, a $500 million 'blank canvas'

Thanks. Not sure what happened but I edited my post so that the link works.

I really can't imagine a more perfect fit for Amazon. This is made for them.

Literally, when considering the history of the building. The Sears mail catalog is what spurred its construction to begin with. Amazon would bring everything around full circle, since they are the digital hiers to the Sears and Wards of yesteryear.

They've added a short video to the website - http://www.thepostofficechi.com

I love this quote from the Tribune article. Makes me think that developers read this forum frequently:

Excellent vid. So glad we get to keep this gem in the city instead of it being demolished like so many other great buildings.

It probably has more to do with Amtrak owning Union Station, and the Post Office sits above Amtrak tracks so there's already a certain level of familiarity between the two.

The one thing I don't particularly like about this location is this side of the building. It's not at all inviting as a pedestrian. Concrete & ashphalt everywhere, no trees, a noisy highway, etc. I was in Seattle earlier this month and walked around Amazon's campus there, including the three new highrises and biospheres that have been constructed. From a biking & pedestrian perspective, Amazon has done a fantastic job making the new neighborhood feel fresh and inviting. I wish it was possible for the freeway to be below grade around Jefferson and rise up to its current level at some point underneath the Post Office to continue at its current level across the river. It could be capped above, with both the Clinton & Canal streetscapes modified to improve the pedestrian experience in that area. Of course that's probably quite difficult given the blue line subway that's already there and any potential Clinton subway in the future. And perhaps the decline/incline to achieve a below grade highway over a few blocks is simply too much. I just wish the west side of the building had a higher quality pedestrian experience to better match what Amazon seems to prefer given how much attention they gave to pedestrians & cyclists when designing their Seattle campus. It seems to be something that was important to them there, so I would think it would behoove backers of Amazon locating at the Post Office to do something creative to allow for a quality pedestrian experience here as well.

I'm pretty confidant the city would agree to basically any streetscape improvements Amazon requested here short of burying the highway.

I'm sure 601W plans on doing something on that side to improve the pedestrian experience with or without Amazon. It just hasn't been shown in any renders yet because the immediate focus has been elsewhere.