About danieldschell

I'm Daniel Schell, a West Loop Chicagoan, Twitter fiend, and picture taker. I like sunsets, travel, and long walks through construction sites. If you build it, I will come.

It’s time to go vertical, as the Hoxton Chicago erects a tower crane

Posted on September 25, 2017 by danieldschell

Chicago’s newest tower crane is at the Hoxton Chicago hotel in the West Loop.

The Hoxton Chicago hotel in the West Loop can start shooting upward toward its 12-story goal, now that Power Construction has installed a shiny new tower crane to do the heavy lifting. Power and Central Contractors Service spent most of the weekend putting up the Peiner SK-415 beauty on the lot at Lake and Green Streets in the ridiculously busy Fulton Market District.

The GREC-designed hotel got its tower crane permit from the City of Chicago back on August 4, so we had to wait awhile for this one. And, as usual, it was worth the wait.

: This is the view from the upper level of the Morgan Street L platform.

: Epic backdrop.

: Also a pretty decent backdrop.

: Sears Tower visitors had the best views over the weekend.

: The view from the Clinton L platform.

: The foundations looks to be shored up.

808 West Van Buren plants a tower crane stub

Posted on September 25, 2017 by danieldschell

A tower crane stub was planted last week at the 808 West Van Buren construction site.

Hey, who remembers my prediction about where the tower crane would be at 808 West Van Buren in the West Loop? Yeah, forget that. My guess that a concrete pad may have been prepped for the crane at the far north end of the site was off by about 98.8%. The tower crane stub popped up last week (I don’t know which day; I missed another one) near the southwest corner of the lot. The City of Chicago issued a permit for a Peiner SK-415 back on September 6.

There’s still a lot of foundation digging happening at the future 12-story residential building from Loukas Development, but this first sign of a tower crane means Lendlease will start shooting skyward on the bKL Architecture design in the very near future.

And then there were two. Twice.

Posted on September 25, 2017 by danieldschell

One tower crane is cool. Two is spectacular. There might be sound functional reasons to employ two tower cranes on a job site, but it’s usually done for our entertainment. And two jobs sites came through for us last week.

The two tower cranes of The Lincoln Common.

W.E. O’Neil added a second crane up at The Lincoln Common. It.s two 20-story towers each require a crane of its own. And McHugh Construction added a second crane at One Grant Park. It’s primary function will be to construct the 16-story parking deck, while the first crane continues with the residential portion of the 76-story apartment tower.

A luffing crane has joined the fun at One Grant Park.

Chicago now has five construction projects with two tower cranes, joining the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center, One Bennett Park, and Vista Tower.

With Haymarket Monument back in place, EMME gets ready to open at 165 North Desplaines

Posted on September 22, 2017 by danieldschell

The Haymarket Monument is back home at 165 North Desplaines, where it will greet residents of EMME.

It was 165 North Desplaines for most of its formative months, but now the name is EMME, and crews are putting the finishing touches on the new apartment building from Gerding Edlen in preparation for its first residents. One has already moved back home; the Haymarket Monument, moved off site to Union Park for safe-keeping during construction, is back in place on the sidewalk near the corner of Desplaines and Randolph.

EMME is a 14-story, 199-unit project designed by GREC Architects and built by Power Construction. Units include studios, one-bed, and two-bedroom units, and features include a rooftop pool, fitness center, an outdoor grilling area and a chef’s kitchen, and two produce gardens.

Here comes Tower Crane #2 at One Grant Park

Posted on September 20, 2017 by danieldschell

One Grant park’s original tower crane stands proudly over its latest project: Tower Crane #2.

As One Grant Park continues to grow, we saw growth of another kind on Tuesday: Tower Crane #2 has sprouted up from the stub planted on the site last week.

When I arrived late in the afternoon, the crane’s tower had grown, but the crawler crane on the lot last week planting the stub was nowhere to be found. That tells me Tower Crane #1 is putting Crane #2 together. Doesn’t that kind of teamwork just melt your heart. Crane #1 will continue working on the residential of the tower (that being the 792 apartments we all want to see the views from) and Crane #2 will work on the parking deck that extends up through the 16th floor.

As for the rest of work at One Grant Park that doesn’t involve assembling tower cranes, McHugh Construction crews look like they’ve reached the 15th floor, by my count. Just 61 stories to go to reach 76. We’ll have plenty of progress to watch for over the coming fall and winter months.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: More photos than you’ll ever need of a tower crane that isn’t even finished yet… plus the rest of progress on One Grant Park.

: This is what we can see without leaving the B.U.C. HQ.

: That view, zoomed.

808 West Van Buren foundation work continues

Posted on September 20, 2017 by danieldschell

Deep down, they’re still getting foundation work done at 808 West Van Buren in Greektown.

808 West Van Buren, the bKL Architecture-designed 12-story apartment building from Loukas Development, keeps setting its feet into Greektown, as Lendlease construction crews continue ground work in advance of the tower crane that will send the 148-unit apartment building vertical.

There’s a concrete pad against the north end of the lot, up against the existing building (314 South Halsted, the former home of The Parthenon, and a building getting some extensive work done in its own right) that looked like it could be a tower-crane pad, but what they’re erecting atop that slab doesn’t look much like a tower crane stub. We’ll keep our eyes out.

10 days ago, looking at what I thought would be the tower-crane pad.

See? That doesn’t look like tower crane space.

Late Night with Vista Tower

Posted on September 19, 2017 by danieldschell

Vista Tower glows from across the Chicago River at River Esplanade Park.

Vista Tower has been under construction for just over a year now. This blog has featured approximately 17,648 posts about progress on the 95-story hotel and residential tower. And yet, I’ve somehow managed to neglect it. How? By not stopping by the site after dark. That situation has been rectified, as of this past weekend.

I know, you just saw a bunch of photos of Vista Tower yesterday. But here we go again.