Don’t believe me? Marquette Management has proof. And it looks like it was quite a party. Congrats to Marquette Companies, Power Construction, and Brininstool + Lynch on the big two-fer!
Author Archives: danieldschell
As demolition continues, foundation work begins at Ravenswood and Lawrence
RaveLaw is cooking now.
Most of the demolition work at Ravenswood and Lawrence is done, save for the gaping hole and (what appears to be) 45-foot-thick concrete at the northwest corner of the site. So while Precision Excavation keeps hammering away at that, William A. Randolph has started doing foundation work towards the southeast corner of the property.
They’re working on the two buildings of RaveLaw for Harlem Irving Companies that will ultimately deliver about 170 luxury apartments, wrapped around the newly built Chase Bank, and right next door to the Ravenswood Metra station.
A verticality update at Gild Chicago

Gold Coast’s lone tower crane continues sending Gild skyward at State and Division. The future 12-story, 89-unit apartment building from Newcastle Limited had reached the sixth level when I stopped by last weekend.
Gild is a design by CallisonRTKL. Power Construction is on the build.
Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides, Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, and comfortable walking shoes are adding up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.
Progress Update: The Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics at UI Health

The tower crane at 1009 S. Wood St. in the Medical District has finished lifting steel on the 200,000-suare-foot Outpatient Surgery Center and Specialty Clinics for UI Health. You can tell by the ceremonial Christmas tree that’s been placed atop the final steel beam.
That tower crane will still be around for awhile. Though all the steel is in place, the cladding panels for the building will all be lifted into place by said tower crane; it should stick around for another 2-3 months.
Shive-Hattery Architecture & Engineering and ZGF Architects are both involved in this design, while Pepper Construction is the general contractor.















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Caissons — BIG caissons — continue at 354 North Union
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.
Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides, Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, and comfortable walking shoes are adding up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.
There’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.
Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides, Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, and comfortable walking shoes are adding up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.
Farewell, 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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Progress 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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Stuff 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.
Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, and comfortable walking shoes are adding up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.
More 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.
Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides, Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, and comfortable walking shoes are adding up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.


























































































































