[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by Chicago_Forever

The idea that you need a full city block to build a supertall is yours and yours only. No one is saying Chicago is going to be building pencil thin Supertalls but it doesn't have to. The Sears Tower is not even on a full city block. Also, just immediately north and west of 181 W Madison are two hulking parking garages that can each easily support a supertall. As a matter of fact, I believe the site to the west is where the 2000ft Miglin-Beitler Sky Needle was proposed back in the 90s. Then you have the large garage directly east of Sears and another farther south. There's at least 2-3 more of these huge garages circling the Loop. Also, while not technically the Loop, there's still that huge lot (2 lots?) in the West Loop, north of Presidential Towers that's begging for a supertall.

Oh, and you yourself a few posts ago said the new trend will be smaller floor plates and higher ceilings heights. If this does indeed become the new trend, and with these garages being the only real opportunities for redevelopment in the loop, and with cost of land in the central loop likely to be more expansive in the future, I can't imagine every one of these garages will be torn down to be replaced with 50 storey boxes.

Besides the Renaissance Hotel at 1 Wacker which is a preposterously underutilized lot, two of my favorite possible 1,000'+ tower sites are the garage at Wabash and Randolph and Harold Washington College one block north, which is just a horrible irredeemable building begging to be turned to dust.