^ Hopefully they end up preserving/repurposing the Carriage Annex. Instead, let them buy out the crappy Holiday Inn across Canal and put up a full block 60 story office tower instead :yes:

And while we are on that pipe dream, Canal and 290 should be made into an at-grade traffic-lighted intersection, with the entire west frontage of the OPO turned into retail. :tup:

Don't they still have zoning to add some massive tower here?

What an incredible success story. A total gift of good fortune to this city.

Great question. I thought they had approval for a 130-story giant... I wonder if it's lapsed?

The whole PD is based on Bill Davies' kooky plan for the Post Office which was honestly too overstuffed. They asked for the moon and they got it (building height, FAR, density, you name it) but they also committed to a ton of costly infrastructure. I'm guessing from 601W perspective this looked like a bad deal since they still have all the same costly infrastructure commitments even if they scale down the development plans to what the market will bear. 601W didn't shy away, they took on the project and all the risk and completed Phase I. Now they reap the rewards of a huge and successful office building, but the Phase II and Phase III in the PD are really fanciful. Not sure if those phases can actually be built without 601W going back to City Council to renegotiate the terms of the PD.

For now, these Phase II/III entitlements have not lapsed so they still have the ability to build a supertall on the Sugar House site if they want up to 2000', or a highrise on the Holiday Inn site (minus that crappy little retail building with Harold's Chicken which is not part of the PD).

More likely, I think we get a residential highrise (not supertall) on both sites eventually. The PD allows up to 6,769 residential units and 1,240 hotel rooms. I suppose there's an outside chance that Chase or somebody else comes in demanding a signature office tower, and this is the only riverfront site that's already entitled for such a tower... but it's south of Congress, so that may be a dealbreaker for big anchor office tenants.

^What about the speed ramps???

. . . I'll see myself out. . .

. . .

Software consulting firm Focused Labs is moving from Fulton Market to OPO. This building is inching towards being 100% leased

Software Startup Focused Labs Moves Into Old Post Office Building
https://www.builtinchicago.org/2022/...-office-hiring

VillageMD, a primary health care provider with funding from Walgreens, is moving from the Loop to OPO for larger space

VillageMD takes space at Old Post Office
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...ld-post-office

^Oh wow, this building has to be 100% leased now? Great to see businness still searching for office space.

Makes sense as Walgreens HQ moved into the OPO iirc.

^ They are still HQ'd in Deerfield, they simply consolidated their downtown offices in the OPO, and moved a whole bunch of tech and e-commerce jobs down as well. It will be a pretty sizeable presence (1800 employees IIRC), but the execs wanted to remain in the North Shore I guess.

My bad thanks for the correction. I didn't rc.

Managed to snap a picture of the plaza work going on along the Canal St side. They've totally demolished the concrete deck and they're working on removing the old steel beams. Lots of pipes being held up on temporary shoring while they do the work.

I thought there were Union Station tracks directly under the south plaza, but it's actually just basement space. The north plaza does have tracks beneath, so the work on that end will require some Metra coordination. Explains why they haven't done any demo on the north side yet.

https://i.ibb.co/kgKsBhx/IMG-3071.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/HVvBy7m/opo-plaza.png

Looks like they are doing demo on the north plaza, actually. You can see the tracks below!

https://i.ibb.co/9nGhC5d/opo2.png

Did you happen to notice what is going on with the Holiday Inn in that shot? Is it a re-model, or is it too much to hope that it's a teardown?

^ I was wondering the same thing. Does anyone know?

Thank you! I'll take an "improvement" as well.

That holiday inn needs to meet the bulldozer

If they actually make it nice enough, it could pay off. Easy hotel stays for anyone needing to visit any company in OPO.

Or someone who wants an overnight in the city near Union or greyhound stations.