Work continues on the new Plumbers Local 130 Training Center at 1400 West Washington Boulevard in the West Loop. Ground was broken on the Gensler-designed training facility back in June; W.E. O’Neil has been hard at work ever since. The state-of-the-art, 50,000-square-foot project should be complete and ready to start training new plumbers next summer.
The Permit. Let The Wicker Park Connection begin!
A permit filed Tuesday by the City of Chicago signals the beginning of the Wicker Park Connection. Another project from the combined forces of Centrum Partners and Hirsch Associates Architects, the Wicker Park Connection will fill the surface parking lot at 1640 West Division Street.
The Wicker Park Connection will be a 15-story building, bringing 140 residential units with 52 parking spaces, along with ground-floor retail. Linn-Mathes has been hired to be the general contractor.
Truth.
Controversial? Contentious? How about “underway”?
Illume, the condominiums for the West Loop from LG Development, has started tearing up the parking lot at 111 South Peoria Street. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held on December 5, then two days later, the City of Chicago issued the building permit.
Designed by Pappageorge Haymes, the 10-story building will contain 79 condos, and include parking in the basement and first floor. Norcon has been signed on as general contractor.
https://twitter.com/PappagHaymes/status/805875985069510656
A rendering of Illume from Pappageorge Haymes.
The Permit.
Even the cover of night can’t hide the emptiness at 725 West Randolph, et al.
Heneghan Wrecking has just about wrapped up work at 723-735 West Randolph Street in the West Loop. What were once 6 dilapidated storefronts look more like farmland than commerce.
So, what’s coming next? No, it’s not a rhetorical question. I’m actually asking it myself. We’ve all heard talk of the fancy tower with robot-valets, but I’ve also heard there may not be anything coming to the empty space for a couple years. Looks like we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we can keep our eyes on the City’s permit site, and listen for community meetings.
Hey, wouldn’t a massive beer garden for Haymarket Brewing next door be a good use of all that acreage?
Fresh off the presses, Monday’s permit for 22 stories and 466 units at 123 East Cermak Road.
Last week, a permit to prep the lot at 123 East Cermak Road was filed by the City of Chicago, and it appeared at the time there would be a new hotel coming to the north end of Motor Row. Now it’s official.
A permit was filed Monday, allowing for:
466 UNITS, 22 STORIES, MIXED USE-HOTELS, ASSEMBLY AND MERCANTILE, NO PARKING
As mentioned last week, McHugh Construction owns the lot, and they’ll serve as their own general contractor. Antunovich Associates handled design duties.
Now that construction can begin, it’s time to crowd-source a name. The Hughtel?
I will spend absolutely no space here trying to explain the scope of Hudson Yards, on Manhattan’s Far West Side. Suffice it to say, it’s a project of mind-boggling proportions, underway since 2012, that could continue until 2025. What I will do, however, is compile the following list of online resources, should you decide you’d like to explore Hudson Yards on your own. And, show you the photos from our October visit to Hudson Yards and the High Line.
Hudson Yards (all the fun, juicy statistics here)
New York YIMBY (lots of construction coverage)
6SQFT (heavy on Real Estate news)
Wikipedia? (Sure, why not)
Hudson Yards Development Corporation
And now, photos:
https://twitter.com/LGDevelopment/status/808687914926411777
If it seems there’s construction on every block of the West Loop, it’s probably because there’s construction on every block of the West Loop. But it’s not all fancy corporate HQs and boutique hotels.
At 177 North Morgan Street* (that’s the address according to the building permit. As you can see in the tweet above, LG Development refers to the property as 185 North Morgan.), LG Development is erecting a single-story retail building at the foot of the Morgan Street CTA L station.
The tower crane that isn’t a tower crane at 151 North Franklin still soars high above Randolph Street.
I missed the memo that said 151 North Franklin would be growing like a weed in spring, despite Chicago heading into winter. On the lot that only yesterday still seemed to anchor that worn-out old Walgreen’s store, the future CNA Center already appears to be about 18 stories into the sky. You can credit Lendlease for that miracle growth, for even in Thursday’s inhuman temperatures, there was still a construction crew on site. That’s not just a core shooting up through the center of The John Buck Company’s 820,000-square-foot office tower, that’s hard-core.
Here are a few shots on 151 North Franklin, which has outgrown all the adjacent parking garages, and their prime vantage points.
Construction progress continues at Centrum Hubbard in River North, the 23-story, 193-unit residential tower in River North from Centrum Partners and Hirsch Associates Architects. 412 North Wells, on the other hand, the accompanying 9-story, 41,000-square-foot office building next to it, still redeems itself as a convenient material-staging site for the apartment tower construction. To be honest though, it’s easier to observe and keep tabs on one project at a time, don’t you think?
McGaw Hall is a distant memory, and the new DePaul School of Music is getting closer to completion. (I used up all my music puns in a previous post, so just know Bulley + Andrews is still hard at work building the 3-story, 185,000-square-foot facility.)
Building Up Chicago 