CHICAGO | St. Regis Chicago (Vista) | 1,191 FT | 101 FLOORS

[the urban politician]

Yeah, all that's really happening is that one equity partner is trying to sell his stake in the project. If he succeeds fine, if not, his obligations remain

[donnie]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Lol, read this thread dude, no one is not addressing it. As has been said over and over again, there is a ZERO PERCENT chance of this project stopping. There is bank financing already in place and that wouldn't have happened if there weren't all the equity required to finish it also sitting safely in escrow at a title company. No matter what the Chinese Communist Party decrees, they aren't going to be clawing money out of title escrows int he United States. Also Magellan has the resources to build this whole thing on their own if they wanted to, so even if the loan weren't already locked and loaded, it would still likely not be in any jeopardy.

It amazes me how so many people can keep asking this question over and over again, people who are apparently on this site all the time.

To be fair not everyone understands the economics of the situation and are more worried of another unfinished product more than anything else!

Chill,

[left of center]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

It amazes me how so many people can keep asking this question over and over again, people who are apparently on this site all the time.

Its a big thread, and I would imagine not everyone goes back to read all the past posts. Sure it's bad netiquette on their part, but you can't entirely fault someone who is from another city and might not read up on this particular thread regularly.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Guys there is zero chance that this project won't be completed at this point. A bank isn't going to issue a multi hundred million dollar construction loan unless All of the equity is there. The money from likely both the bank and equity is probably in a title company escrow account to be distributed as the project is completed. The Chinese government may be able to nationalize assets in China, but they have zero sovereignty in the US. That's not how things work here and that's exactly why the communist party is so worried about money going overseas, it dilutes their power. As Wang himself said, cooperating with the party is a "live by the party, die by the party" proposition.

Originally Posted by marothisu

It seems like every 3 or 4 months, someone finds some article that's already been shared or the information has already been shared - and there's some sort of amnesia with a few people. It's weird.

Originally Posted by KWillChicago

Isn't it like a $700 million loan that Wanda was approved of. No chance this baby's not being completed. Wouldn't be completely shocked if the hotel chain switched at some point.

Originally Posted by MayorOfChicago

Sucks for them to sell it at this point, you would think the investors would really want to at least keep this thing until physical construction wraps up, I mean they already have a construction loan in place. The proceeds you'll get on this thing 33% finished compared to just wrapping up construction using the loan are huge.

One good thing is that this is going to market not because it's distressed or the market is distressed, but because of issues with the investor/ownership group.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Those are all from the last three pages. He could have literally read just one page of this thread and he would have gotten the picture. It's mentioned like every 15-20 posts for the past five pages.

[Fvn]

Is there any chance that a potential buyer would/could remove floors and make it shorter?I feel like this would be unlikely, but you never know.

[vexxed82]

Stopped by the site again today. Hadn't shot the south side of the building in some time. Given the nice day, I though it would make for some decent light.

I have a feeling this might feel like the tallest building in the city when it's done.







Making quite a statement from the opposite side of Lakeshore East:




One of the coolest part about the building is also quite maddening from a photography standpoint. When zooming in to capture details, the slanted walls make it incredibly hard to find a known plumb vertical line from which to properly orient and.or control for perspective distortions...especially when pointing straight up.

Either way, I did my best to capture some close shots of the frustum inflections.

[KWillChicago]

Awesome upward shots Nick! I'm getting a Chase feeling wth that curve.

[Domer2019]

I'd imagine the risk of losing tenants on the upper ($$$) floors is also a deterrent to cutting the height?

[Fvn]

Originally Posted by Domer2019

I'd imagine the risk of losing tenants on the upper ($$$) floors is also a deterrent to cutting the height?

Probably yeah

[LouisVanDerWright]

Another reason they won't cut the height is THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THE MONEY SITTING IN SPECIAL ACCOUNTS THAT THEY CANT EVEN TOUCH WAITING TO BE SPENT ON AND ONLY ON FINISHING THIS BUILDING TO ITS FULL HEIGHT.

Seriously people, how hard is it to understand that this project is a done deal. This isn't 2007 with people starting construction totally speculatively without any solid financing in place...

[donnie]

Is it bad that I'm already getting vertigo from looking at these awesome pics?

[Domer2019]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Another reason they won't cut the height is THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THE MONEY SITTING IN SPECIAL ACCOUNTS THAT THEY CANT EVEN TOUCH WAITING TO BE SPENT ON AND ONLY ON FINISHING THIS BUILDING TO ITS FULL HEIGHT.

Seriously people, how hard is it to understand that this project is a done deal.

^ That would be the opener, not a side note. But there's nothing like making an argument so airtight it starts flying...

So there's a covenant prohibiting refinancing, then? No buying out a loan? No secondary markets taking it off the creditor's account for looser restrictions on the investment? Not saying this would happen, because it's irrational financially. But everyone knows Wanda has financing...

I'm just surprised China needed the wealth back now, versus next year. Big megacity plans? Another amusement park endeavor?

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ When you are dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars, any agreement is going to be essentially airtight. Everyone busts their asses getting together a very refined set of documents outlining exactly what they want in the transaction and then all the money is basically put into escrow that no one can touch without the approval of all other parties except for the approved uses (construction payments to contractors). The money is disbursed when the bank/title inspectors go out to the property and see X% is completed. Other than that there is basically a zero percent chance Wanda can get out of the deal unless someone buys their stake from them exactly how it is, meaning the new owners get no rights beyond the exact rights outlined for Wanda in the original agreement. The only real way a deal a this stage could have issues is if the contractor somehow fails or embezzles money or something like that. Seeing as the contractor is McHugh that seems very very very unlikely.


The Chinese want their money back because they accumulated $4 trillion in USD reserves after the recession by printing their own currency and buying all the dollars we were printing during the crash. They had to do this or the value of their currency would have soared making Chinese exports to the US too expensive for Americans to buy (we increased the supply of dollars making them less valuable, so they also increased the supply of Yuan and used them to buy Dollars and take them off the market, thus inflating the price of the dollar). The problem with this strategy is that when the US has to start unwinding the expansionary monetary policy (i.e. stop printing dollars and start destroying them) the reverse must happen. The reverse of that is of course that the Chinese must now start unloading their USD cash horde or the value of their currency will collapse, which is also not good.

So, since 2015, Chinese foreign currency reserves have plunged from over $4 trillion to under $3 trillion. The problem is when the government does that it also encourages private actors to do that which basically manifested itself in the form of guys like Wang going around and buying as many foreign assets as possible. This has started to cause concern in China as it is basically widespread capital flight, essentially money leaving the country en masse. Beijing, being a hardline centralized state, has reacted by essentially trying to ban capital fight, i.e. grabbing the CEO of Wanda as he tried to high tail it overseas where he could easily live out his days as essentially a state fugitive with billions of dollars in hotels and movie theaters that the Chinese government can't touch. This is also the same pressure that has been driving Bitcoin, Chinese citizens are now only allowed to move $50,000 a year overseas, so a lot of them have been using cryptos to exchange Yuan for cryptos in China, take the cryptos out of China, and trade them for Dollars, viola! You got your money out and you only had to pay a 5-10% fee to launder it.

[JK47]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

^^^ This is also the same pressure that has been driving Bitcoin, Chinese citizens are now only allowed to move $50,000 a year overseas, so a lot of them have been using cryptos to exchange Yuan for cryptos in China, take the cryptos out of China, and trade them for Dollars, viola! You got your money out and you only had to pay a 5-10% fee to launder it.

Bitcoin's rise in value looks more and more the result of fraud or market manipulation. Bitfinex owns a dollar backed crypto called Tether that is supposedly valued at 1 tether to 1 USD. However, the rate of Tether creation has gone bananas coinciding with the rapid appreciation in Bitcoin's value. Whenever the value of Bitcoin looked to retreat suddenly a lot of new tether would be created and then used to purchase Bitcoins through Bitfinex.

Bitfinex had hired an outside auditor to regularly go over their books and prove that nothing shady is going on. However, despite assertions that they have engaged an auditor it turns out that they actually fired the auditor.

[vexxed82]

Originally Posted by donnie

Is it bad that I'm already getting vertigo from looking at these awesome pics?

Originally Posted by KWillChicago

Awesome upward shots Nick! I'm getting a Chase feeling wth that curve.

Thanks! Can't wait to get right-up close when it's finished - or I get on the site, ha.

It'll be interesting to see how strong the 'Chase Effect' ends up. In person, it isn't nearly as disorienting as Chase, perhaps since the walls are flat, not curved. Time will tell. May be way different when/if you can stand close enough to look up and see a frustum jutting out over you.

[harryc]

Jan 31

Shell proof bedrooms - always a good thing on an international border.

[Rocket49]

^^^

"International border"?

[donnie]

Very eager to see the tint of the windows! Will it be a dark transparent blue or more of a reflective silver blue....

[Domer2019]

Originally Posted by Rocket49

^^^

"International border"?

Classic East Berlin architecture, look at all the concrete. It's right next to the ̶C̶h̶i̶c̶... Spree River so it could be on the border near the Wall.

[aaron38]

As the east tower shrinks and the western portion widenes, is it catching up?