Stalworth Underground and Onni Group are still on caisson duty at 354 North Union. They even brought in more equipment this week, so while most of the caissons have been drilled and filled, there’s still work left to be done.
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DonateThere’s steel making progress at CA6
Sorry, that should read “They’re still making progress at CA6.” Pardon my typing.
Anyway, I snapped a couple shots Monday as work continues on this eight-story, 72-unit condo building from Belgravia Group.
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DonateFarewell, 320 South Canal Tower Crane. You served the city well
Parting is always such sweet sorrow, but tower cranes don’t stay in one place forever, so shed no tears for the Potain MR298 Luffing Jib workhorse atop 320 South Canal in the West Loop. Last week, a derrick crane was installed to dismantle and lower the tower crane, and that it did, with removal, from what I could see 52 stories below, wrapping up Monday.
I made it over here in time to see a couple crane sections on the ground, and one loaded up onto a truck to be hauled away. I tried to wait for the truck to pull out of the construction site, for the dramatic grand exit, but I lack patience. I also tried waiting around long enough to see the derrick crane lift a load of steel up to the top. I didn’t last that long. This was interesting though. I’m going to make some assumptions here, but that load of steel looked heavy, and that derrick crane doesn’t have much reach away from the glass cladding on the west face of the tower. There were guy-wires on each end of the load, running on tracks running up the side of the tower, to keep the steel from rotating, which would have sent one end or the other crashing through the façade. Or at least scratching the heck out of the glass. Who knows, maybe these are common, but they’re something I’d never noticed before. The photo in the gallery below with the two red circles shows those attachments.
15 minutes elapsed between the time I took this first photo of the steel lift and the second photo, and it’s only about 3/4 of the way up. Glad that crew has more patience than I.
15 minutes later . . . 
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DonateProgress Update: The Gateway Apartments
We checked in on The Gateway Apartments at 2050 West Ogden this week. Global Builders’ lone tally on the Chicago Tower Crane Survey is rising above the fenceline for your viewing pleasure.
Reminder: This is an 11-story, 161-unit apartment development in the Illinois Medical District, which looks like it could become a very busy construction zone in the next couple years. Keep an eye out over there.
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DonateStuff That’s Done (in Milwaukee): 7SEVENTY7
This is the third and final entry on this blog dedicated to 7SEVENTY7, a residential tower in Milwaukee that went from a hole in the ground on my first visit, to work-in-progress construction site on my second go ’round in 2017, to a finished apartment building when I walked by early in June 2021.
Northwestern Mutual teamed up with Hines to get 7SEVENTY7 built. The Solomon Cordwell Buenz design was built by C.D. Smith Construction.
Milwaukee’s tallest residential tower upon its completion in 2018, it delivered 310 units atop a 10-story parking garage. That parking garage, boasting 1,400 spaces, might seem like a lot, but 7SEVENTY7 compliments Northwestern Mutual’s also-recently-completed office tower a block away; these parking spaces are meant to be shared with that office building and the apartments’ attached retail space.
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DonateMore glass and a new name for 1400 West Randolph: This is Parq Fulton
Parq Fulton is the new name for Marquette Companies’ apartment tower going up on the far end of the West Loop at 1400 West Randolph.
As the glass curtain wall continues to wrap around the tower, progress looks to be at or near the 20-story mark, heading towards 26 stories in all.
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Donate1454 West Randolph is now Evo Union Park, and it’s in on the glass game
Step aside, 1400. You’re not the only one on this street lending a touch of glass to the neighborhood.
1454 West Randolph is getting its glazing on over in West Town. But not only does it have new glass, it also has a new name.
Evo Union Park is the moniker attached to this one, per developer Marquette Companies’ website. Cool. 1454 West Randolph had an awful lot of syllables to get through.
So congrats on the two milestones at Evo Union Park to Marquette, design architect Brininstool + Lynch, and GC Power Construction. Next up: topping out!
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Donate345 North Morgan lands its full-build permit
It’s been almost 15 months since foundation and tower crane permits were issued for Sterling Bay’s 345 North Morgan, an 11-story, 230,000-square-foot office building in the nearly-impossible-to-keep-up-with Fulton Market District. That’s a looong time to wait on a tower crane.
But Monday, the full building permit was issued for this one, so we’re keeping crossed fingers that Three Four Five will get started soon.
Located next door to Sterling Bay’s Ace Hotel, and across the street from their Google offices at 1KFulton, 345 North Morgan will include ground-floor retail space and parking spots for 34 cars, according to that aforementioned permit.
Eckenhoff Saunders Architects is the design architect on 345. Skender Construction is designated as the general contractor.
Tower crane permit 03/09/2020 
Foundation permit 03/12/2020 
Full permit 06/14/2021 
Demolition December 2019 
Stuff That’s Done (In Milwaukee): The Milwaukee Bucks’ new home, Fiserv Forum
Look, I’m not posting this now in the hopes of scoring free Playoff tickets. Honest, I’m not. That I hadn’t been in Milwaukee in four years is purely coincidental. But anyway, good job by the Bucks in Game 3 after looking like they might be future venison steaks on the roof rack of a station wagon after that Game 2 horror.
Fiserv Forum was called the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center when I last stopped by, in July 2017.
Fiserv Forum is a design by Populous, the Kansas City-based architecture firm known in Chicago for its work on Guaranteed Rate Field and the United Center. They were assisted in the design work by Eppstein Uhen Architects and HNTB Corporation. The M.A. Mortenson Company was the general contractor.
The Forum opened in August 2018. It’s predecessor, the Bradley Center, was demolished soon after. That site remains empty now, but I doubt it’ll remain that way for long.
The empty Bradley Center lot. 
The new parking garage next door. 
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DonateCaisson work has begun at the Plumbers Union 130 parking garage
W.E. O’Neil Construction and Michels Corporation are sending caissons into the West Loop soil for the seven-story parking garage at the Plumbers Local 130 facility. The permit to begin was issued May 14.
Now I know some of you aren’t huge parking garage fans, but this one is requiring a tower crane, so there’s a nice trade-off here. (I’m told not to expect said tower crane until July.)
OKW rendering
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