CHICAGO | Highrise Projects & Construction, v7

[chicubs111]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

there are still vacant lots fronting grant park

seems off to demolish a 40 story fully utilized building with vacant lots sitting around

sitting around?....im talking from the east side area not in south loop or south Michigan avenue....not to mention the size of the potential lot that this building sits on would be much larger than anything else fronting grant park...basically could have another Aon center on this site thats how much space that building takes up

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

Lakeshore East is just about finished. Just 2 parcels to go, I think.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/8/30...opment-meeting

Is there any reason why the landscaping in the lot between The Buckingham and Field Blvd hasn't been finished? I was looking on google maps and it looks like it's just a big hole in the ground right now.

[jpIllInoIs]

^Looks like there is Parcel 0 and Parcel I remaining and the L shaped 'future' between The Shoreham and The Lancaster.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

^Looks like there is Parcel 0 and Parcel I remaining and the L shaped 'future' between The Shoreham and The Lancaster.

I think that may be 'park' homes/townhomes..?

Edit: Curious, but does anyone know what the hard dollar economic impact of Lakeshore East is, since it began in 2001? I cannot find anything online...was just thinking about it based on the old site plan that galleyfox posted..I don't know if there's a way to measure the total investment made by Magellan development over the years (including infrastructure), and compare that to current value of everything that's been built there, although I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by chicubs111

sitting around?....im talking from the east side area not in south loop or south Michigan avenue....not to mention the size of the potential lot that this building sits on would be much larger than anything else fronting grant park...basically could have another Aon center on this site thats how much space that building takes up

As someone who lives in this building and knows the history as well as the finances of the building intimately, I think it's fair to say there's lower hanging fruit all around town. . . this building has 960 units and a sizeable war chest to keep any predatory fantasy land thinking people from even bothering to look at this as seriously as you are. . . I mean, why stop there. . . why not get rid of Harbor Point? It's not that much taller, in a more prominent location and sits on a footprint that could easily support a tower three times it's size?!?

. . . moving on. . .

. . .

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

^Looks like there is Parcel 0 and Parcel I remaining and the L shaped 'future' between The Shoreham and The Lancaster.

Is Gems II still half-finished and languishing? I wonder what they can do with it...

[BVictor1]

Originally Posted by r18tdi

Is Gems II still half-finished and languishing? I wonder what they can do with it...

I'm pretty sure it's written into the PD for there to be a public school in the area.

[SteelMonkey]

Originally Posted by BVictor1

I'm pretty sure it's written into the PD for there to be a public school in the area.

Its always been fuzzy. The intention was always there but......

This is from a decade ago

https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/...t-it-expected/

[ardecila]

Right, the land is supposed to be for a public school but the city/CPS needs to pay for it, not Magellan. For their part, it's a bad look to spend scarce money building a school in an exclusive downtown neighborhood when there is so much need out in the neighborhoods. Plus, on a tight little lot like that, fitting a whole elementary school would be tough and expensive. I can't find a construction cost for GEMS but this would basically be the same as GEMS Phase I.

It would also not have a great set-up for pickup/dropoff, which might be a dealbreaker for CPS anyway. My guess is that Magellan finds a way out of the requirement eventually - maybe they chip into the CPS construction fund to get control of the land bank, or they donate space to CPS in another downtown highrise (not in Lakeshore East).

[ardecila]

^ Yes, and they have 636 schools currently, most of them are a century old, and most of them in terrible shape with leaky roofs, lead paint, asbestos, pest issues, etc. A $675M capital budget doesn't go very far when you have such a huge fleet of buildings, no two alike. It should be several times that amount to truly give students what they deserve.

FWIW, the city did spend $35M on the expansion for South Loop Elementary, they merged Jenner and Ogden, Skinner was expanded twice, Jones got a spiffy new highrise campus, and there is $80M budgeted for a new neighborhood high school serving South Loop and Chinatown, so it's not like the city is somehow stiffing downtown when it comes to schools. There's been a lot of CPS money spent downtown in the last decade.

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by HVAC_Zach

^ For what it's worth, they're spending $675 million on school renovations this year. They spent over half a billion on brand new schools/annexes alone over the last 3 years; in rough and tumble neighborhoods throughout the city wherever demand called for more desks. It'd be OK for them to spend some money in an exclusive downtown 'hood, where the bulk of the tax dollars are generated to begin with.

(It's too bad they burned $2mm on social distancing stickers, and another $35k no-bid contract per school to "install them")

with a $9 Billion annual CPS budget you'd think our schools would be the gold standard of public education, but alas they are not.

our public student population is on a long march to zero, having lost 75,000 students in the past decade. no doubt that budget number will go in the opposite direction.

[gebs]

via Curtis Waltz on LinkedIn

Unbelievable how much the South Loop has extended the skyline. It barely has one in this photo.

[CaptainJilliams]

With the Bears likely leaving SF, would love to see the UFO removed and have it return to the form in the picture above. Doubt it happens, but I can dream.

[ardecila]

That photo also captures a brief time when LSD had been rerouted, but before Soldier Field work had really gotten underway. All those lakefront parking lots are depressing, we really have vastly improved that area. There are still a few parking lots, but they're very well-screened from the lakefront and don't look like a giant scar on the landscape from ground level POV.

Originally Posted by CaptainJilliams

With the Bears likely leaving SF, would love to see the UFO removed and have it return to the form in the picture above. Doubt it happens, but I can dream.

It's not possible. None of the original seating bowl remains except a few rows along the south curve (and these are blocked from view of the field). You can demolish the upper deck, but the remaining seating bowl will still be the weird lozenge shape that is typical for NFL. Which is ironic if it ends up as a soccer-only stadium, plus concerts etc.

[gebs]

Originally Posted by ardecila

That photo also captures a brief time when LSD had been rerouted, but before Soldier Field work had really gotten underway. All those lakefront parking lots are depressing, we really have vastly improved that area. There are still a few parking lots, but they're very well-screened from the lakefront and don't look like a giant scar on the landscape from ground level POV.

Great point -- I didn't notice that until later. That parking lot east of the stadium is gone, replaced with the Gold Star memorial and a lot of green space. I run up and down that path all the time and love it.

[Chi-Sky21]

I think the east side of Soldiers Field looks fine, redo the west side of it for sure though.

[PittsburghPA]

Any idea what year that picture was taken?

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by PittsburghPA

Any idea what year that picture was taken?

Probably 2003-ish. Matches Soldier Field renovation timing, and you can see Wells Street Tower in the distance.

Crazy that this was less than 20 years ago!

[Klippenstein]

Somebody might know more precisely, but it’s somewhere around 20 years ago. The new soldier field opened in 2003 for reference.

The thing that really stands out to me in that picture is the lack of Roosevelt Collection and all those developments along Clark. That area was such a weird no man’s land when I first moved to Chicago. It still hasn’t completely lost the feeling, but with the 78 on the way and plans for all the largest tracts it’s gonna be quite the transformation in a relatively short time.

[harryc]

Feb 10