West Crane and East Crane are both assembled at Sterling Bay’s new McDonald’s Headquarters in the West Loop. East Crane gave us quite a ride, as it started up Saturday, only to have the tower top and cab removed Sunday. But Monday it was erected in full.
Monday evening’s view.
Tuesday morning’s view, with brief sunshine.
As of noon Sunday, a tower, but no crane.
Saturday saw a crew from Central Contractors erecting a free-standing Peiner SK415 tower crane (I know how to read a permit) on the new McDonald’s Headquarters site in the West Loop. East Crane seemed to coming along quite nicely, but Sunday morning saw the crew removing the tower top and cab from atop the tower. The good news here, obviously, is that we may get to watch the cab and turntable raised twice. Yep, that’d be an embarrassment of crane-assembly-watching riches.
Whereas late Saturday afternoon, the tower top and cab/turntable were in place.
Here are photos from Saturday’s partial assemblage. WARNING: Some of them are quite snowy:
Johler Demolition is tearing down 1115 West Washington Boulevard to make room for Hayden West Loop.
On January 19 of this year, the Chicago Plan Commission approved two nine-story condo buildings for construction in the West Loop. One would front the 1100-block of West Washington, the other the 100-block of North May. In an amazing coincidence, a demolition permit had been issued the previous day for the property at 1115 West Washington, and that demolition is going on now.
The new development, known as Hayden West Loop, is being built by Peerless Real Estate Investments, which also appears to be known as Sulo Development. Hayden West Loop is a design from Booth Hansen (The Parker Fulton Market, Chestnut Row Homes) and will bring 56 condominiums to the neighborhood.
In the meantime, Johler Demolition of Arlington Heights is on the scene, knocking down what used to be part of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. Demolition made the news back on February 6 when a small fire broke out (DNAinfo had the deets) but does that really do anything but speed up the demo process?
A piece of West Crane is hoisted into place at the new McDonald’s HQ in the West Loop.
East Crane went into the ground first. So obviously it gets set up before West Crane even gets planted. Right?
Wrong. Crews from Central Crane are busy Tuesday erecting a tower crane on the west side of the McDonald’s Headquarters construction site, leaving pour ole East Crane to watch and wait its turn.
A street crane prepares to pluck the tower crane from atop 822 North Clark Street on Saturday morning.
It was Crexit (Tower Crane Exit, obvs) Weekend in the Near North, as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 822 North Clark Street dropped its tower crane. Remember, that’s only a seven-story building, so the crane got things done and got out of there in a hurry. Where could it be headed next? One Grant Park? The Hilton hotels at 123 East Cermak? Those are the two most recently-permitted tower cranes for Chicago.
East Crane has been planted at the McDonald’s HQ site, under the watchful gaze of the 171 Aberdeen tower crane.
Thanks to a heads-up from Skyscraper Page forum user BB 1871, who pointed out that McHugh Construction has planted the seedling for the first of two tower cranes to be used to build the new McDonald’s Corporation headquarters. The first crane is on the east side of the site; it will henceforth be known as East Crane. Over on the west side of the lot, crews were working on the foundation for West Crane. That’ll mean three tower cranes on two blocks, including the one in use at 171 North Aberdeen.
Caisson work is still ongoing at McDonald’s, but lots of other foundation work has been done as well. There’s a large hole in the ground toward the north end of the site, plus a couple of rebar mats that look like they’re just about ready for concrete pours. So yeah, lots of action going on here.
The tower crane at Addison & Clark can reach every building in Lake View. It seems.
Addison & Clark, the huge mixed-use development being sandwiched around the Sports World Chicago store across from Wrigley Field, erected a tower crane earlier this month, and the thing covers more ground than Jason Heyward and Dexter Fowler (sniff) did last season. And for good reason: in order to reach all points of the L-shaped construction site, the longer the crane, there better.
Foundation work is still being done at the site of 140 future apartments, 150,000 square feet of retail space, and 400 parking spots, but that crane’s already pulling its weight, as piles are shored up and pillars jut out of the ground.
The view of the saved facade from inside Clarkview as Stalworth begins caisson work.
If you’re claustrophobic, you may need to open a window before reading on, as this is a story about tight spaces.
There is no room for error — heck, there’s no room for much of anything — in the tiny space at 3226 North Clark Street in Lake View, where Stalworth Underground has squeezed caisson equipment through the alley to begin work on a new Transit Oriented Development.
Clarkview, a design from Jonathan Splitt Architects (you remember them from the Blue Plate Catering digs) will be seven stories tall and weigh in at 24 residential units. Once home to The Alley, where the cool kids dressed, the facade of the old structure is being preserved and implemented into the new building. That means access to the lot from Clark Street isn’t possible, leaving the alley off Belmont next to the new Lakeview 3200 as the only way in and out.
Stalworth sent over some photos showing just how tight the squeeze was. I looked, and couldn’t find the smallest morsel of sawdust under any of the electrical poles. That’s allowed them to stockpile caisson equipment and get to work in the tiny, enclosed lot.
Work continues on the Chicago Blackhawks Community Training Center.
At 1801 West Jackson Boulevard on the west side, McHugh Construction continues working on the Chicago Blackhawks Community Training Center. Wingers, defensemen, and goalies will be able to use it too though. The two-story, 125,000-square-foot facility, designed by HOK, replaces the original, now-demolished Malcolm X College, which became expendable when a new facility was built across the street.
In addition to providing practice surfaces for the Blackhawks and visiting NHL teams, the center will provide youth hockey development, and host recreational hockey leagues as well. It is expected to open in December of this year.
The unmistakable yellow masts of Case Foundation drilling caissons at the new Cook County Central Campus Health Center.
Case Foundation is on the case in the Illinois Medical District, as caisson work is underway for the new Cook County Central Campus Health Center. The nine-story, 282,000-square-foot facility at the corner of Damen Avenue and Polk Street was designed by Gensler, in collaboration with Forum Studio. Also joining the design/build team is Clayco, Inc. which is serving as the general contractor as well.
*** Forum and Clayco share a motto, “The Art & Science of Building” and an address, at 35 East Wacker. Their involvement in this together is no coincidence. ***
The Cook County Health & Hospitals System broke ground on the new digs back on December 1, 2016. A foundation permit was filed by the City of Chicago January 20.
You can read the entire press release immediately below the photo gallery.
Construction Begins on New Cook County Central Campus Health Center
December 1, 2016
