West Loop’s Nobu Hotel (finally) plants a tower crane

Posted on July 26, 2017 by danieldschell

THERE IT IS! The Nobu Hotel has a tower-crane stub.

The biggest day in the history of the northeast corner of the intersection of Randolph and Peoria Streets on Restaurant Row in the West Loop has finally arrived.

13 months after breaking ground, nine months after receiving a tower-crane permit from the City of Chicago, one month after having that permit revised, and two weeks after having that revised permit revised yet again to relocate the tower-crane pad and caissons, the Nobu Hotel Chicago at long last has planted a tower crane.

And while there’s still a substantial amount of foundation digging to be done, the arrival of the tower crane signals a major step upward for the boutique hotel. With all the development ongoing in this part of the city, overnight accommodations had been sorely lacking, and Nobu’s 11-story, 119-room hotel will help fill that void. But first, it will have to fill the void left by all that foundation digging. Slow as it’s been getting started, Nobu still plans to have its first Chicago hotel open in 2018. Centaur Construction will do their best to reach that goal. (Nobu marks Centaur’s first tower crane on the official tower-crane count.)

: Tower-crane permit.

: Tower-crane permit, revised.

: Revision of revised tower-crane permit.

: Actual, unrevised tower-crane stub.

: Tower-crane foundation awaiting concrete..

: Still lots of digging to do.

Vista Tower takes a new angle

Posted on July 5, 2017 by danieldschell

The WOW Factor just kicked up a notch at Vista Tower.

There’s an age-old axiom in architecture that I just made up that says “You can’t build frustums without angling some columns.” And it makes a lot of sense, if you don’t give it much thought.

Frustums on frustum in this Studio Gang rendering of Vista Tower.

It’s happening now at Vista Tower. McHugh Construction has the beginnings of four concrete columns sticking out of the north elevation at an impossible-not-to-notice angle, to which they’re adding rebar and concrete forms, making an already photo-worthy work site nearly impossible to walk away from. It’s also what Paul Simon was referring to in You Can Call Me Al with the lyric “angles in the architecture, spinning in infinity…” That is, *if* you happened to get liner notes with typos in them. (**Graceland reference due entirely to Paul Simon concert in Milwaukee over the weekend. I won’t make it a habit.**)

Those cool new beams (that’s what the teenagers say all the time: “Cool beams!”) should keep Vista Tower construction very entertaining as they’re repeated throughout the process. Not that any of us needed another reason to keep going back. But we’ll take it.

Crane-less Zachary Hotel glasses up the joint in Lake View

Posted on June 26, 2017 by danieldschell

The Hotel Zachary,, from inside the brand new Cubs Store in the brand new Cubs office building just outside the ballpark.

It’s time for less crane, more pane, at the Hotel Zachary next to Wrigley Field in Lake View.

The tower crane came down about a month after Walsh Construction topped out Hickory Street Capital’s 7-story, 175-key hotel. At about the same time, window installation began on the third floor, and continues to wrap all the way around the building.

Throwback Thursday: London’s One Blackfriars

Posted on June 22, 2017 by danieldschell

One Blackfriars rises along the River Thames in London. This photo was taken from the Monument to the Great Fire of London, a great way to see the city.

One month ago we were in London, marveling at architecture old and new. And there’s a whole lot of new on the way. One of those projects is One Blackfriars. Like much of what’s being built right now around London, it is very distinctively shaped, and gorgeous.

One Blackfriars is a development from Berkeley Group. The 50-storey (no stories here; this is London, after all) glass tower will have 274 apartments and 161 hotel rooms along the south bank of the River Thames. The design is by the architecture firm of SimpsonHaugh and Partners. The general contractor (seriously, as I wandered London and saw this name on lots of new construction, I thought each one would include a large movie-theatre complex. Silly tourist.) is Multiplex. Multiplex is not a place to watch films and eat popcorn; Multiplex is a massive global construction company.

1101 South Wabash is starting to rise from the depths

Posted on June 14, 2017 by danieldschell

A bird’s-eye view of construction at the Hilton Homewood Suites, 1101 South Wabash in the South Loop.

After a lot of digging and shoring of its foundation, there’s vertical work happening at 1101 South Wabash in the South Loop. The 30-story hotel from S.B. Yen Management Group of Hinsdale was designed by Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture, and Lendlease is the general contractor.

A press release from Lendlease at groundbreaking states the hotel will be flagged as a Hilton Homewood Suites. There will be 281 rooms and suites, 71,000 square feet of parking, and an 8th-floor amenity level including a pool and fitness center, all ready for use late in 2018.

Construction Update: The Three Hiltons at McCormick Place

Posted on June 7, 2017 by danieldschell

Hilton’s first Triple-Brand Hotel begins to rise at 123 East Cermak Road in the South Loop.

There are three Hilton hotels being built into one structure down at 123 East Cermak Road in the Prairie District “sub neighborhood” of the South Loop. That’s really all you need to know, but for the sake of word count, they are the Hilton Garden Inn Chicago McCormick Center, the Hampton Inn by Hilton Chicago McCormick Center, and the Home2 Suites by Hilton Chicago McCormick Center.

Developers First Hospitality Group and Hilton are banking on McCormick Place visitors appreciating having lodging options to choose from, hence the optimal location between the convention campus and the revitalized Motor Row.

A couple sunny days, including Tuesday’s unlocked doors at the McCormick Place rooftop garden, provided perfect conditions to catch up on McHugh Construction’s progress on Antunovich Associates’ design.

: Mooncrane.

Catching up at Vista Tower

Posted on June 5, 2017 by danieldschell

Vista Tower continues to rise.

It’s been a month since we took a look at progress on Vista Tower, the magnificent supertall by Studio Gang and bKL Architecture. You may think workers would be discouraged that I haven’t been dropping by daily, but McHugh Construction crews seem to be getting a lot done despite my absence. Certainly not because of it.

Anyway, I’ll need to borrow some balconies soon, for as Vista climbs higher, our scenic views from Wacker Drive and Lakeshore East are going to be well below where the action is.

Quick Look: Aloft Chicago Mag Mile plants a tower crane stub

Posted on May 29, 2017 by danieldschell

Streeterville has a new tower-crane stub, thanks to the lovely new seedling sprouting up at the Aloft Chicago Mag Mile at 243 East Ontario Street. Just a little more sand left to dig out of the lot, and Tishman’s 18-story hotel can start going vertical.

River North’s Moxy Hotel gets Chicago’s most unique tower crane

Posted on May 26, 2017 by danieldschell

Off in the distance stands one of Chicago’s newest tower cranes, at the Moxy Hotel site.

Tower crane parts are delivered the first week of May.

We knew there’d be a crane at the Moxy Hotel site in River North, but when the parts showed up, I asked someone on site and was told it really wasn’t a “tower crane.” But a piece of paper can make all the difference in the world, and as you can see, the City of Chicago’s building permit says it’s a tower crane:

ENGINEERED SUPPORT FOR A LEIBHERR 81 K.1 TEMPORARY SELF ERECTING TOWER CRANE SUPPORTED ON A BALLASTED BASE AND CRANE

Yeah, Liebherr is the correct spelling, but that’s not important. What matters is that this contraption with the weight stack that looks like the bench-press machine from high school goes in my official book as another tower crane for Chicago.

There were similar cranes to this one spotted during a visit to Phoenix this winter, but they were operated from the ground. Since the Moxy Hotel crane requires an operator to make the climb up to a cab, that gives it even more legitimacy. Count it.

: The Tower Crane Permit.

: Remember high school, when we challenged each other to bench the stack? Yes you do.

: The Captain. 2

: The Ship.

Walsh Construction celebrates topping out at Hotel Zachary

Posted on May 16, 2017 by danieldschell

A tweet from The Big Green W yesterday confirmed that the Hotel Zachary has reached a construction milestone.

https://twitter.com/thebiggreenw/status/864231518352355329

Then the Hotel Zachary Twitter account joined the fun as well, tweeting a photo of Hickory Street Capital’s Tom Ricketts (you might know him for his other gig as the guy who brought a World Series trophy to Wrigley Field) signing the final beam.

https://twitter.com/hotelzachary/status/864244896110137345

#FlyTheBigGreenW indeed. There’s still a lot of work to do to get the Hotel Zachary into full-functioning hospitality mode, so let’s not put the tower crane on the endangered list quite yet. The 175 rooms and countless eateries will open in 2018 in time for another season of Cubs baseball, plus all the concerts and entertainment Wrigley Field and the newly-opened Park At Wrigley can host.

Tuesday-morning view of the Hotel Zachary from a swift-moving L train. (I blame all my blurry photos on swift-moving L trains.)

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