Crain’s Chicago visited the new Avenir apartment tower at 730 North Milwaukee Avenue in River West recently. The 23-story, 196-unit rental building opened to its first tenants January 16, per Crain’s.
Avenir is a design by Antunovich Associates. It was developed and built by Tandem.
Check out the article linked above by Crain’s. You’ll get to see a video about how livable a studio unit can be when a robot does the heavy lifting for you.
Comings and goings at Parkline Chicago: A Brown Line train passes as the Orange Line approaches.
Lots of elevators have an LL button. That’s very similar, yet entirely different, from the L Level Parkline Chicago has reached in The Loop. For awhile there, Parkline was under The L. No longer.
Construction has risen above street level, and has now pulled even with the CTA’s elevated rail along North Wabash Avenue. That means if your train comes to an unexpected stop here, you’ll be able to hi-five the Clark Construction crew. Assuming you’re in a car with roll-down windows.
The two apartment towers that anchor the new Lincoln Common development in Lincoln Park opened to residents in Spring 2019. The Apartments at Lincoln Common fill the pair of 20-story towers with 538 apartments, featuring studio, one-bed, two-bed, and three-bedroom units.
The sprawling complex is built on the grounds of the former Children’s Memorial Hospital, which was demolished after the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago was constructed in Streeterville. Children’s patients were moved there in the spring of 2012.
This phase of The Lincoln Common could have been called Noahville, because everything about this project came in pairs:
There are the two towers.
The two towers were erected by two tower cranes.
There are two developers: Hines and McCaffery Interests.
There are two design architects: Antunovich Associates and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Alas, there only needed to be one general contractor in charge of putting it all together; W.E. O’Neil filled those duties.
Included in the photo gallery below are a couple more pieces of the Lincoln Common puzzle:
Updates to come: The Orchard, a seven-story condominium building currently under construction, and Belmont Village Senior Living, a completed seven-story residential facility at 700 West Fullerton.
Congratulations to all involved in the ongoing establishment of a great new neighborhood on Chicago’s north side.
The parking has been locked down, and a lone piece of construction equipment stands at the ready on the future site of 410 South Wabash in the South Loop.
College students don’t need parking lots. College students do need beds. That might be a little oversimplified, but that’s how I prefer to look at 410 South Wabash in the South Loop.
A foundation permit issued by the City of Chicago beck in December launched the beginning of 410 South Wabash. Developed by Lennar Multifamily, or LMC, this new residential building in the South Loop promises to deliver 344 dwelling units in a 25-story, 260-foot-tall tower.
The site sits at the foot of the T intersection of the CTA’s elevated train lines at Wabash Avenue and Van Buren Street, offering future residents unlimited opportunities to take cool Instagram shots of the L coming and going into and out of The Loop. Orange, Pink, Green, Brown, and Purple Line trains all pass through here, and when the Christmas Train passes by at night, lucky tower dwellers will be directly above the action.
4th Ward Alderman Sophia King held a community meeting in May, from which there comes a veritable cavalcade of information on 410 South Wabash. Floor plans show a mix of 1-bed, 2-bed, and 3-bed units, plus studios, convertibles, and micro-apartments. Though no indication is given that this tower is targeting the South Loop student population, those smaller units sure seem to be good options for the college kids.
410 South Wabash will also include 103 parking spaces, which goes against my thoughts on students needing to park, but definitely fits in with 3-bedroom homes. There will also be about 8,000 square feet of commercial space.
Antunovich Associates is the architect of record; Pepper Construction is the general contractor.
That little yellow dynamo pictured above may or may not start tearing up the parking lot at any minute. As always, sooner is better than later.
The Lot
The Lot, with Pink Line train
The Lot, from under the L
The foundation permit, issued 12/17/2019
Is this recent work at the Toyoko Inn Chicago site?
There should be a hotel standing at 320 South Clinton by now. Guests should be having Beggar’s Pizza delivered to their rooms from next door, then stopping around the corner for breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s in the morning. Then returning to their rooms to watch construction across the street on the new Union Station Tower. But nope. What was supposed to be the Toyoko Inn Chicago is still an empty lot, albeit an empty lot with enough caissons sunk into the ground to support the weight of a 24-story hotel.
The only progress made at the Toyoko is a small hole in the ground where the foundation may (or may not) have been started. It can’t be a pool; all that rebar sticking up would be extremely prohibitive to swimming. And diving would be downright dangerous. What I don’t know is how recently that hole was created.
So what gives? Will Toyoko Inn Chicago ever happen? Is the hole a sign it’s happening now? Is this still even going to be the Toyoko still? Or is the site destined to the purgatory that is Spireville? More questions than answers, I have.
Caisson work, May 2018
Caisson crews at work, May 2018
Caissons are done, but where’s the tower crane? June 2018
Bird’s-eye view of Parkline construction at Randolph Street and Wabash Avenue in the Chicago Loop.
Permits are in hand, foundations are set, and the tower crane is up at 50 East Randolph Street in The Loop. That’s where Moceri + Roszak are replacing a parking garage and cheap food (though I admit to having been a fan of the Qdoba that was here) with a 26-story residential tower at the corner of Randolph and Wabash.
Parkline is a design by Thomas Roszak Architecture. It will consist of 214 units. 24 will be condos; 190 will be rental apartments. Also included will be 68 parking spots and ground-floor commercial space, all with an anticipated opening in 2021.
Crain’s Chicago had a lot of information about Parkline in May of last year (holy moley, 2019 was last year already.)
Clark Construction is the general contractor for this tower. And, in names that don’t get enough shout-outs on this blog, Adjustable Concrete Construction is in charge of the concrete and tower crane, while Thornton Tomasetti is the structural engineer. They did work for The Vessel at Hudson Yards in Manhattan. That alone makes them heroes. Have you seen that thing?
I didn’t go to Hudson Yards on New Year’s Day, but I did stop by the Parkline construction site. Want proof? It’s in the photos below, along with a batch of Parkline renderings from Thomas Roszak Architecture.
Chicago’s newest tower crane is at 145 South Wells. And it’s a shiny yellow one!
The 20-story office tower Moceri + Roszak is building at 145 South Wells has erected The Loop’s first tower crane since we waved bye-bye to the sidewalk-hovering iron beast at 151 North Franklin more than a year ago. Now the real fun begins for Clark Construction, what with the crane being operational and caissons having been sunk into the earth. That means it’s time for some verticality at 145 South Wells.
Do what you do, shiny yellow crane.
The tower crane stub (and wading pool?) is ready to go at 145 South Wells.
Today is expected to be the first day of assemblage for the tower crane at 145 South Wells, the 20-story boutique office tower Clark Construction is building for Moceri + Roszak in The Loop. We’ve waited a long time for a tower crane in what amounts to Chicago’s Central Business District. (We don’t call it that here, but I’ve always liked the way that sounds. Lots of other cities use it; why not us? Is it like putting ketchup on a hot dog? Doing the wave at Wrigley? Riding a bike on the sidewalk? Oh wait…everyone does that here.)
So here’s a quick look at that stub before it becomes a full-grown tower crane.
Southbank Park is claiming some of the Chicago River.
The Cooper at Southbank is fast approaching its Fall 2018 opening. Last week we told you about the new name for the apartment tower in Lendlease’s also-newly-named Southbank development. We took another walk around the site Wednesday to see the tower, as well as continued work on the grounds that will become Southbank Park.
The Lincoln Common’s two towers near topping out in Lincoln Park.
If my math is correct, I see towers of 18 and 19 stories at The Lincoln Common. Both those numbers are very close to 20, which is what we were expecting on the former Children’s Memorial Hospital site in Lincoln Park.
And it’s not just those two towers W.E. O’Neil is hard at work constructing. Belmont Village across Fullerton has started shooting upwards, 2380 North Lincoln (the old White Elephant shop) is getting some much-needed attention (finally!) and the six-story retail & office building at 2350 North Lincoln has risen fast. Heck, even the parking garage next to that is having work done. These are a busy couple of blocks in Lincoln Park.
Building Up Chicago 