Category Archives: Hotel

McHughtel construction gets underway in the South Loop

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123 East Cermak Road McHughtel

Caisson equipment as far as the eye can see.

McHugh Construction crews are rolling rebar cages and digging holes and trenches at the site of McHugh’s new hotel project at 111-123 East Cermak Road in the Prairie District, and that means construction is underway.

The 23-story, 466-room hotel is a design by Antunovich Associates. The City of Chicago  filed the building permit back on December 19, and the lot has been filling up with materials ever since. Now, holes are being dug, the aforementioned rebar is being twisted, and caisson equipment is stacked and ready to be sunk into the earth. McHugh, of course, is the general contractor.

Essex Inn looks under all the mattresses, comes up with money to begin demolition

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Essex on the Park demolition

It’s demo time! Goodbye parking garage and swimming pool, hello 475 apartments.

As Crain’s Chicago Business reported on Tuesday, Essex Inn at 800 South Michigan Avenue has secured the funding necessary to upgrade the hotel, and add a new a 56-story apartment tower as its new next-door neighbor.

Essex on the Park demolition

The Demolition Permit.

And no sooner had the ink on the check dried, crews were out on Michigan Avenue, setting up barriers and scaffolding for the temporary sidewalk that will keep pedestrians safe during demolition of the 5-story garage next to the hotel, while also making sure bloggers and skyscraper nerds can’t get too close to the goings-on.

None other than Heneghan Wrecking (we need t-shirts with Heneghan Again on them) will be making space for the new tower, with a demolition permit having been filed way back on October 27.

The Chicago Plan Commission approved the development back in May of 2016, and I quote:

The Applicant intends to create two subareas within the overall 28,744 square foot site. Subarea A, located at 800 South Michigan Avenue consists of an existing 160’ hotel building and will be rehabbed to include a maximum of 290 hotel keys. Subarea B, located at approximately 812 South Michigan Avenue, will be redeveloped with an approximately 620’ residential building including a maximum of 476 dwelling units, 100 hotel keys as well as 100 parking spaces and commercial space.

Essex on The Park, the name of the Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture-designed tower according to Crain’s, should be complete in 2018, and coincide with completion of the hotel renovation.

Essex on the Park demolition

This rendering, from the Crain’s story,  is from Hartshorne Plunkard Architects. Too pretty not to include.

First of two Vista Tower cranes is in the ground

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Vista Tower cranes

The two cranes of Vista Tower. West Crane, on the right, is set in its foundation. East Crane, to the left, is awaiting its turn.

Not only does Vista Tower win the First Tower Crane of 2017 Award, it wins the second tower crane of the year plaque as well.

Just as the City of Chicago promised us with the two permits filed on the last day of October and the second day of November, Vista Tower is putting two tower cranes into the freshly-caissoned ground in the New East Side neighborhood.

You’ll notice a striking difference between the two stub sections of crane that are now on site. “West Crane” where the taller towers of Vista will stand, looks like it’s on steroids when compared to “East Crane.” I wouldn’t advise messing with either of them, though.

Shout-out to bKL Architecture for being on-scene Tuesday morning and breaking the big crane news with an Instagram photo.

 

Parking garage turned empty lot in South Loop is getting a hotel

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1101 South Wabash

I don’t know what this steel-and-wood sculpture, in the lot at 1101 South Wabash, is called. But I like it.

At 1101 South Wabash Avenue, directly behind the Best Western Grant Park Hotel in the South Loop, the City of Chicago has filed a permit to begin construction of a 30-story hotel. According to the permit, this will be a design by  Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture. And according to the Chicago Plan Commission agenda for November of this year, the hotel will have 281 rooms and 57 parking spaces.

The two-story parking garage on the site got its demolition permit in January of this year, and by the middle of February, it had been reduced to an empty lot.

Currently, there are a couple of cool abstract pieces of iron artwork on site, but I can’t say for sure those are permanent. Lendlease is the general contractor on the hotel project; we’ll let them decide what stays and what goes.

Construction Progress: The Hotel Zachary meets the street in Lake View

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Hotel Zachary

The Hotel Zachary is rising from the sandlot across Clark Street from Wrigley Field.

Remember all that sand at 3630 North Clark Street in Lake View? History. Banished form existence like the whole billy-goat curse thing. And now, rising up from the depths of what used to be the Lake Michigan Lakefront, is the Hotel Zachary. From developer Hickory Street Capital, which helped bring you the 2016 World Series Championship, among other goings-on in and around Wrigley Field, the Hotel Zachary (no word yet on my proposal to change the name to “The Russell On Addison“) will have 175 rooms and a whole bunch of top-notch dining choices, from fast-food to fancy.

I took a walk around the site this week, and found Walsh Construction just beginning to peek above sidewalk-level. Wanna see the pics? Of course you do.

A permit makes it official: Motor Row is getting a new hotel

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123 East Cermak

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?

overhead

Ace Hotel discards its tower crane

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Ace Hotel

The tower crane’s gone from the Ace Hotel.

It’s a sign of progress to see how many tower cranes are sprouting throughout Chicago. It’s another sign to see how many of those cranes are disappearing from construction sites around town. Done with one job; on to the next.

The Ace Hotel at 311 North Morgan Street in the West Loop is one of the latest area projects to lose its tower crane. The GREC Architects-designed 159-key, seven-story boutique hotel is topped out, and Sterling Bay is looking to have full houses in the very near future. General contractor Power Construction is doing what it can to make that happen soon.

The Cubs get a tower crane with 11 Ws

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Hotel Zachary Tower crane

The moon and the tower crane shine bright next to Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs play baseball. They just won the World Series. Have you heard about that?

That’s right, it’s a towwwwwwwwwwwer crane. Because when you win the last three series of your season – 3 wins, then 4, then 4 more games – and finish 2016 as The World Series Champions, you use 11 Ws wherever you want to use them.

It’s not the Cubs Hotel, but the Hotel Zachary being built at 3630 North Clark Street in Lake View. It’s right across the street from Wrigley Field (perhaps you’ve seen something about that ballpark in the news recently) and its developer is Hickory Street Capital, an entity of the Ricketts family, who own the Chicago Cubs. So you see, it’s all connected. I think The Hotel Russell on Addison would be a better name, but I haven’t been asked for my input.

Anyway, the tower crane went up at some point during the Playoffs. I was too stressed by the Cubs not sweeping their 11 wins to notice much construction-wise around Wrigley. If you’ll recall, the Hotel Zachary will be a 7-story, mixed-use facility with 175 guest rooms (known as “keys” in some spaces), retail space, and several restaurants.

Remarkably, crews were still digging sand from the site on Monday. A quick survey of Walsh Construction workers (two of them) confirmed there is a surprising quantity of the stuff. Did Lake Michigan really extend as far west as Clark Street back in the day?

IMPORTANT REMINDER: EVERY TEAM IN EVERY MAJOR SPORT HAS WAITED LONGER FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP THAN THE CHICAGO CUBS!