Keep in mind, this is just a massing model so we still don't know what the exterior skin will look like. But the location, height and orientation of the new hotel has changed.
__________________
Don't be shy. Step into the light.
New plan floated for disputed site near McCormick Place
By: Alby Gallun May 28, 2014
Quote:
James McHugh Construction Co. has proposed a compromise for a disputed site near McCormick Place where it wants to build a data center and the city had pushed for a hotel. McHugh's solution: Build both. The Chicago-based construction company has filed a zoning application with the City Council that would allow for a 359,000-square-foot data center and a 650-room hotel at the southwest corner of Cermak Road and Indiana Avenue. The proposed project is just west of McCormick Place, on a site where the city had planned a 1,200-room Marriott Marquis hotel, part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's larger push to draw more people to the neighborhood.
Quote:
NEW PROJECT
Now, McHugh is seeking city approval for 320-foot-tall hotel on the north end of the property, along Cermak Road, and a squatty 142-foot tall data center that would run along Indiana Avenue.
320' for the hotel does seem a little disappointing. The proposed hotel in River North (Giordano's) with approximately the same number of keys will be 444'. Maybe I'm being greedy.. But in this case, 'greed is good'.
I don't think McHugh counted on Rahm to rejigger the whole plan and shove it forward quite so efficiently. This is not a project he's going to let hang out in the courts for a few years over their site.
Wait, does this mean cancellation of the data center tower behind ABC ? Can someone check whether its planned size was originally in the vicinity of 359k SF ?
Wait, does this mean cancellation of the data center tower behind ABC ? Can someone check whether its planned size was originally in the vicinity of 359k SF ?
No, this just means another data center over on Indiana. This area is probably the biggest fiber hub on earth as a result of the convergence of all major rail lines on Chicago's south side. Most fiber runs along old railway ROW's because it is the easiest and most direct route to get a continuous run of privately controlled land between two cities. Thus Chicago is seeing further benefits from it's industrial past.
No, this just means another data center over on Indiana. This area is probably the biggest fiber hub on earth as a result of the convergence of all major rail lines on Chicago's south side. Most fiber runs along old railway ROW's because it is the easiest and most direct route to get a continuous run of privately controlled land between two cities. Thus Chicago is seeing further benefits from it's industrial past.
I think you're jumping the gun. They're both about 11 stories and by McHugh. No matter how high your enthusiasm for the unctuous marriage between fiber optics and Chicago's RR heritage (you made these points in a big data center discussion in this thread in late January), and I do share your enthusiasm, I still think it would be a leap to assume there's demand for 22 new stories' worth of data center space all of a sudden, without something actually indicating that it is indeed the case.
Think about this like the commercial market. There will soon be entitlements in place to build both data centers, but interest and commitments from tenants will determine which one gets built. Now that there are two large proposals, the risk of building an entire data center on spec is much higher.
Possibly McHugh already has commitments in place, which explains why they were so anxious about the city's plan to seize the land.
__________________ la forme d'une ville change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel...
I think you're jumping the gun. They're both about 11 stories and by McHugh. No matter how high your enthusiasm for the unctuous marriage between fiber optics and Chicago's RR heritage (you made these points in a big data center discussion in this thread in late January), and I do share your enthusiasm, I still think it would be a leap to assume there's demand for 22 new stories' worth of data center space all of a sudden, without something actually indicating that it is indeed the case.
Don't underestimate the demand for data centers right now. Between the cloud computing boom and the prop trading market here and the recent tech boom, there is a lot of demand for rack space. I could easily see two different data centers in the same market just as I can see 150 N Riverside and 444 W Lake competing for office space across the street.
^ Let me go into something technical then. Traders need to be near this location because every millisecond saved between here and NY can mean millions of dollars. But for cloud computing, the extra latency of a hundredth of a second is not that big of a deal. So, witness Microsoft's recent data center near O'Hare (in Northlake). It's a sprawling, flat facility, where racks are effectively individual truck trailers that they can drive in, hook up, and then just drive out several years later for replacement. I think the cloud computing boom would probably opt for the cheaper land further from the central city. You can also look at Apple's and Google's recent data center projects and see how they have no problem being in very rural areas. They also like rural areas because of site-adjacent alternative power sources like a small wind farm or, in an extreme example, that Arctic circle data center in Finland near a hydroelectric dam.
Also, data center cooling systems might be more expensive if they are more mechanized, as with rooftop chillers, compared to the situation of non-urban and rural data centers which can use cooling ponds or similar methods that take advantage of the extra land around them. I'm not sure how good a neighborhood brine-cooling system is in this regard though.
^^^ Not all cloud computing is the same. Some of it is latency sensitive. Cloud is a very general term, but regardless of the application, there is an increasing demand for rack space in every market, sprawling suburban, or vertical centrally located.
my company is looking to move its primary datacenter out of our office building in the loop and into a hosted facility. We are in the financial/trading industry and they've looked all over the country. Even with higher taxes, Chicago is very cost effective when taking into consideration the cost of the lines to connect it to major hubs and to our primary offices
Prev
Linear Mode
