CHICAGO | United Center 1901 Project | 55 Acres | 5000-6000 Apts.

[Jstange059]

Significant construction work is underway on the parking garage site, and a good amount of equipment is located on the music hall site. The hotel site does not currently show any signs of construction activity

[Cress3803]

any new rendering of the music venue component? I wasn't expecting that to run out ahead of the rest

[Jstange059]

I believe the music hall site is still primarily a construction staging/equipment storage site. At this point in the construction process, that aren’t really building anything yet, we’re really still in the demolition stage. They’ve been demolishing parts of the old deliveries area, modifying them to prepare for the new parking garage/elevated park to be built over top. Nothing new is being built yet, as far as I can tell, they’ve not yet started pouring new foundations for the new structure, but that’ll be the next step of construction once the demolitions are complete

The other sites (music hall and hotel sites), having only been simple parking lots, do not require this in depth demolition process, which is likely why we haven’t yet seen this level of construction activity on those sites yet.

Also, I noticed that a piece of land that roughly lines up with the hotel site is fenced off, but no construction activity whatsoever has happened in that area. Also, the tarp hung over the fence is a different color from the active construction areas, and there is no signage on the fence regarding the construction, so the fencing may potentially be unrelated from the larger project

In summary, the construction process is still progressing steadily. I am impatient and want to see things be built soon and quickly, but everything seems to be progressing logically

Originally Posted by Cress3803

any new rendering of the music venue component? I wasn't expecting that to run out ahead of the rest

These should still be up-to-date renderings of the music hall. Looks pretty nice, in my opinion

[Jstange059]

Originally Posted by Cress3803

any new rendering of the music venue component? I wasn't expecting that to run out ahead of the rest

I was reading this article and noticed a strange rendering depicting what I assume is the back of the music hall



This picture has confused me quite a bit, and seems to quite conflict with a lot of my understanding of the project. Potentially, this is depicting some of the raised park space that would be on the roof of the music hall, or some ground level garden space sitting along Damen. If it was ground level, this would really conflict with all the ramps and access points to the elevated parks, and force them to redesign a lot of the ramps and even general concept of this whole phase. If this is the rooftop gardens, then it seems way too large of a rooftop space for this part of the site. It seems completely out of scale with how the site is being developed, and I am struggling to understand how it actually fits. The building labeled community center seems far too thin to be the main base of the building, and does not show a bridge connecting this to the neighboring park on top of the west parking garage, so I am guessing that this is just a small structure on top of the building adding services to the rooftop park. Additionally, it appears to stick too far out that I'd expect it to intrude on the west parking garage's site?

Clearly I must be misunderstanding something fundamental about this rendering, because it is really confusing me.

So, with this confusion, I went to the 1901 Project’s website and found this rendering of the music hall.



The design in this render definitely matches the design in the other rendering far more than the previous design of the music hall. Appears to be a backlit perforated corten steel facade very roughly similar to the Barclays Center in New York or the National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC. Still looks quite nice in my opinion, though I’d still say I prefer the previous design probably, but it is growing on me. Doesn’t really resolve my questions and confusions from the previous rendering, but I need a site plan to properly resolve that I think. This rendering does seem to clearly show plants and some fencing on the level, indicating they are still creating these elevated parks. I'm just still confused about the other rendering


On a completely separate note, I foudn this rendering of the alley between the stadium and the parking garage with the park on top, and thought it looked nice. (String lights can make any space feel nice)

[r18tdi]

Looks like the music hall has indeed been redesigned.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by Jstange059

I was reading this article and noticed a strange rendering depicting what I assume is the back of the music hall



This picture has confused me quite a bit, and seems to quite conflict with a lot of my understanding of the project. Potentially, this is depicting some of the raised park space that would be on the roof of the music hall, or some ground level garden space sitting along Damen. If it was ground level, this would really conflict with all the ramps and access points to the elevated parks, and force them to redesign a lot of the ramps and even general concept of this whole phase. If this is the rooftop gardens, then it seems way too large of a rooftop space for this part of the site. It seems completely out of scale with how the site is being developed, and I am struggling to understand how it actually fits. The building labeled community center seems far too thin to be the main base of the building, and does not show a bridge connecting this to the neighboring park on top of the west parking garage, so I am guessing that this is just a small structure on top of the building adding services to the rooftop park. Additionally, it appears to stick too far out that I'd expect it to intrude on the west parking garage's site?

Clearly I must be misunderstanding something fundamental about this rendering, because it is really confusing me.

So, with this confusion, I went to the 1901 Project’s website and found this rendering of the music hall.



The design in this render definitely matches the design in the other rendering far more than the previous design of the music hall. Appears to be a backlit perforated corten steel facade very roughly similar to the Barclays Center in New York or the National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC. Still looks quite nice in my opinion, though I’d still say I prefer the previous design probably, but it is growing on me. Doesn’t really resolve my questions and confusions from the previous rendering, but I need a site plan to properly resolve that I think. This rendering does seem to clearly show plants and some fencing on the level, indicating they are still creating these elevated parks. I'm just still confused about the other rendering


On a completely separate note, I foudn this rendering of the alley between the stadium and the parking garage with the park on top, and thought it looked nice. (String lights can make any space feel nice)

I think it’s the back side of the music hall, and part of it is elevated/there’s a green roof garden that wraps around close towards the main entrance in the front. It’s an odd rendering be used the perspective seems off, or many just because the front is at a lower elevation than this part.

I’m frankly just very exited that a brand new, 6,000 seat music venue is being built in Chicago. The city is a major music venue market in N. America, and there’s always room for more venues to fill.

[Jstange059]

Chicago YIMBY also had this rendering of the music hall, and said that the design changes included programmed rooftop spaces, so presumably the renderings I was confused about is depicting the new rooftop spaces.

[left of center]

With the 1901 project underway, my mind is wandering and thinking about how some of the surrounding properties might be redeveloped to repair the lost urban fabric. It would be nice if we could fill in some of the empty land surrounding the "tower in a park" properties, such as West Point Plaza on Damen and Jackson or the senior apartments on Madison.I would love for Damen Courts to be redeveloped as well into a more fitting urban format, but I believe those are CHA housing so they are unlikely to be touched.

[Steely Dan]

Wait, they're finally gonna build something on the 5 square miles of parking lots around the UC?

That only took my entire freaking adulthood so far (literally, I was 18 when the UC opened back in '94).

[Jstange059]

Originally Posted by left of center

With the 1901 project underway, my mind is wandering and thinking about how some of the surrounding properties might be redeveloped to repair the lost urban fabric. It would be nice if we could fill in some of the empty land surrounding the "tower in a park" properties, such as West Point Plaza on Damen and Jackson or the senior apartments on Madison.I would love for Damen Courts to be redeveloped as well into a more fitting urban format, but I believe those are CHA housing so they are unlikely to be touched.

In Gdansk, Poland, they built a bunch of new apartment buildings lining the streets in front of the existing old Soviet housing blocks. Could see something similar done here, though CHA has plenty of empty lots that they’ll take decades to fill before they will even start to think of densifying or rebuilding housing

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Jstange059

Chicago YIMBY also had this rendering of the music hall, and said that the design changes included programmed rooftop spaces, so presumably the renderings I was confused about is depicting the new rooftop spaces.

This is looks a lot like Berlin Philharmonic... The front looks pretty nice but that backside rendering (is that a flyloft?) looks awful for a facade that will be permanently exposed toward Damen. I was expecting it to change though, the original designs from RIOS were very unrealistic and out-of-place for Chicago.

Check out the "PD minor change" here for more of the changes. I'm not so hot about some of the design decisions, but I think this will be transformative for the area. A massive upgrade both for the fan experience and for the community/Chicagoans in general.

• no rooftop park on the garage, it's just a 3-story garage now with ground-floor retail (wish they just went taller with it so they don't have to keep building dinky 3-story garages)
• Emporium arcade bar may be a tenant in the garage ground floor, there are other logos shown but I can't make them out
• smaller rooftop park on music venue was retained, but pedestrian bridges linking to other elevated green spaces were deleted
• generally the site plan and retail is inward-focused towards the plaza spaces, the street frontages are more blank with cheaper materials. Like a mini Old Orchard Mall.
• 29' dedication (widening) along Damen, I think this is for bike lanes and a properly wide sidewalk for a major arena
• 8'-6" dedication (widening) along Adams for bike lanes

[Jstange059]

Originally Posted by ardecila

This is looks a lot like Berlin Philharmonic... The front looks pretty nice but that backside rendering (is that a flyloft?) looks awful for a facade that will be permanently exposed toward Damen. I was expecting it to change though, the original designs from RIOS were very unrealistic and out-of-place for Chicago.

Check out the "PD minor change" here for more of the changes. I'm not so hot about some of the design decisions, but I think this will be transformative for the area. A massive upgrade both for the fan experience and for the community/Chicagoans in general.

• no rooftop park on the garage, it's just a 3-story garage now with ground-floor retail (wish they just went taller with it so they don't have to keep building dinky 3-story garages)
• Emporium arcade bar may be a tenant in the garage ground floor, there are other logos shown but I can't make them out
• smaller rooftop park on music venue was retained, but pedestrian bridges linking to other elevated green spaces were deleted
• generally the site plan and retail is inward-focused towards the plaza spaces, the street frontages are more blank with cheaper materials. Like a mini Old Orchard Mall.
• 29' dedication (widening) along Damen, I think this is for bike lanes and a properly wide sidewalk for a major arena
• 8'-6" dedication (widening) along Adams for bike lanes

“Minor change” they say… I’d argue this is quite a major change, and quite a disappointing one at that.

So yeah, the parking garage is just a parking garage now. The rooftop green space on top of the music hall is really quite minimal, and does not seem like it will have much if any actual utility to it, and I expect that it will be a real dead space. The park space that was in the rendering at the back of the building appears to just be ground level, which is not a bad thing, but it means all the actual useable park space will be separate from the actual rooftop spaces which will simply be a terrace with some plants without any actual practical use.

also, the parking garage does not appear like it is configured in a way that will enable retail facing Madison

Needless to say, it is still undoubtedly better than the surface level parking lots, and in fact, I expect it will still be quite a nice space quite unique to Chicago, with lots of great greenery, but it is just such a massive downgrade from the previous proposals. This is a really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I feel like they are squandering it. But I guess that’s probably just a reflection of our current economic circumstances

[ardecila]

Those rooftop green spaces were always a joke of an idea from Southern California architects (Rios). It was a seductive idea but it was never gonna get built that way. The more limited pocket park on top of the music venue seems easier to manage, the terraced steps will get used for seating like the Spanish Steps overlooking the ground-level plaza and the roof level will probably have some kind of food/beverage component to draw people up there and provide passive surveillance.

I'm more frustrated by the inward-facing site plan. They seem to just accept that the streets will always be hostile ugly stroads and any kind of human-focused spaces need to be sheltered from that. More SoCal design thinking for you... a concept that focused more on high density and midrise mixed-use buildings would allow for the best of both worlds.

[Chi-Sky21]

It will probably be a larger version of Salt Shed Vip section with a private terrace and bar. More planters with trees that die every year though....

[Jstange059]

It’ll be pretty cool looking back at these photos 20 years in the future when we’re all used to these buildings being part of our urban fabric

[Jstange059]