Rendering from Pickard Chilton of a proposed boathouse at River Point.

An innocent Wednesday-morning tweet led me down a rabbit hole, and I eventually climbed out through the website of Pickard Chilton, the New Haven, Connecticut-based architecture firm known in Chicago for designing River Point and 300 North LaSalle, plus one of my out-of-town favorites, the Northwestern Mutual Tower in Milwaukee.

One item on the Pickard Chilton projects page in particular caught my attention; The Boathouse. A proposed development for Hines, The Boathouse was designed to go where River Point Plaza stands now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all unhappy with either River Point or its plaza, but this boathouse would have been an awesome addition to the Chicago River. Maybe another location? It could look marvelous down on the South Branch too.

All of the following images of The Boathouse are from Pickard Chilton.

River Point Plaza, where The Boathouse would have been built. (B.U.C. image)