Category Archives: New Construction

It’s tower crane time at Nobu Hotel

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https://twitter.com/JPGraziano/status/896001886859526144

Everybody’s talking about the new crane in town. Even purveyors of fine sandwiches.

As you read these words, Central Contractors Service and Centaur Construction are on the Nobu Hotel Chicago site in the West Loop, assembling the tower crane that will send the 11-story boutique hotel vertical. It’s also the reason you can’t drive on Peoria Street between Randolph and Lake. We’ve waited a long time for this one, so let’s enjoy it while it lasts. If it lasts. Now that Nobu will start going vertical, it won’t take long to stack its 11 floors on top of each other.

*** Centaur CEO Spiro Tsaparas called the B.U.C. to let me know a correction is in order on the Nobu project. I’ve reported that Walsh Construction was assigned the task of concrete work. That information, listed in Nobu’s building permits, is incorrect. Pepper Construction is, in fact, the masonry contractor for the Nobu Hotel.***

 

Sometimes the tower cranes we miss are the tower cranes we miss the most

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Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center

Curtis Waltz at Aerialscapes sent over this photo of the WESC from June, just as the second tower crane was coming down.

We love tower cranes at Building Up Chicago. That’s no secret. We’re especially fond of scenes like Vista Tower, The Simpson-Querrey Center, McDonald’s Headquarters, and One Bennett Park, each of which have two tower cranes on site. And don’t even get us started about the two projects we saw in London that had 10 apiece.

But we can’t get to them all.

We found out today, courtesy of Curtis Waltz at Aerialscapes, that the tower crane we wandered to at the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center had a sibling. Up until a couple weeks before we stopped by, the parking garage being constructed next to the Milwaukee Bucks’ new arena had a second tower crane.

Hey! Why not keep a tower crane on a parking garage? Do you have any idea how helpful (and fun) it would be to use it to get cars up to and off the top level?

Curtis said neither tower crane remains on site now, so it looks like we got there just in time. Maybe one trip a year to Milwaukee isn’t often enough?

Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center

Only one tower crane remained when we visited the WESC in July.

Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center

Don’t get me wrong; there were still multiple cranes. Just not multiple tower cranes.

1326 South Michigan construction ramps up

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1326 South Michigan

Someday, this gate will open, leading you up the ramp to the parking podium at 1326 South Michigan.

Standard joke. When you see the beginnings of the ramp that will lead to a parking podium, you make the pun. It’s the law.

1326 South Michigan, the shiny new 47-story apartment tower underway in the South Loop, is in that phase. As support columns start rising from the ground, the parking ramp is taking form off the alley at the back of the site. It will provide access to the 180 indoor parking spaces allocated for the 500 or so apartments being built at the SCB-designed tower.

Walsh Construction, who just erected a tower crane here to make up for the one they took down at Alta Roosevelt, is efforting to meet Murphy Development Group’s (along with CIM Group) goal of a Fall 2018 opening for 1326.

Hilton Homewood Suites at Wabash and 11th makes an appearance above street level

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Hilton Homewood Suites 1101 South Wabash

Lendlease continues work on the Hilton Homewood Suite at 1101 South Wabash in the South Loop.

Hilton Homewood Suites 1101 South Wabash

Bird’s eye view in June of foundation work.

After lots of foundation work — not to mention the demolition of the two-story parking deck previously on the site — Lendlease is sending the new Hilton Homewood Suites vertical at Wabash Avenue and 11th Street in the South Loop.

The 30-story tower, designed by Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture and developed by Hinsdale’s S.B. Yen Management Group, will start with parking up to the 7th floor, then rise upward with an amenity level on the 8th floor, hotel rooms from 9 to 23, corporate suites on floors 24 through 29, capped off with another level of creature comforts on the 30th floor.

The garage demolition was permitted in January of last year. Ground was broken in December 2016; completion is expected late next year.

 

Marlowe going higher in River North

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Marlowe 169 West Huron

Marlowe, formerly of 675 North Wells Street in River North, now resides at 169 West Huron.

On the busiest block in River North, Marlowe (169 West Huron Street, according to its shiny new website, not 675 North Wells, where the permits are addressed) continues its rise toward its goal: to become a 15-story, 176-unit apartment building. While the east half of this block (bounded by LaSalle Street to the east, Huron to the north, Erie to the south, and Wells to the west) is occupied by work on The Ardus and The Bentham, Marlowe covers the entire west half of the block all by itself.

Antunovich Associates designed the building for Lennar Multifamily Companies, which will also deliver 11,000 square feet of street-level retail space when it opens next year. Power Construction is doing the heavy labor, with work having reached the underside of the fifth floor.

Speaking of that new website: it boasts of a “16th-floor amenity deck.” A 16th floor is a bit unusual in 15-story buildings. Does that mean the amenities will be on the roof? Or is Marlowe rising to 16 stories instead of 15?

Steel is starting to climb high at The Ardus

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The Ardus

The skeleton of The Ardus is coming into view.

It’s been somewhat slow-going — you might even say it’s been arduous… — but a big yellow street crane is starting to move progress along at The Ardus, laying steel in place for the soon-to-be apartment building from Cedar Street. The combination renovation/new construction project is bringing 149 rental units to 676 North LaSalle Street, adding two floors to, and gutting, an existing office building and erecting an entirely new structure immediately to its east.

That existing portion of the project has had no such sign of sluggishness, as the gutting continues in earnest. But now it’s nice to see the shell of the new building start to look like a building. And though we won’t get to see a tower crane at The Ardus, that street crane is pretty enough to suffice. Method Construction, one entity of Cedar Street, is the general contractor.

 

Little crane making big progress at the Moxy Hotel

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Moxy Hotel Chicago

The Moxy Hotel rises from the corner of LaSalle Street and Grand Avenue in River North.

That little tower crane in River North that I insist on counting, then keep forgetting to count, isn’t letting any statistical oversight keep it down. Pepper Construction is using it to put up the 8-story Moxy Hotel at 530 North LaSalle Street. Issued its full permit back in February, the Moxy has been rising steadily ever since, as it approaches the targeted mid-2018 opening date.

Moxy is opening a Times Square hotel in New York City this month, and you should see the rooftop space. Really. Click this link to see it. Those views!

BREAKING NEWS: One Bennett Park keeps growing taller

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One Bennett Park

Staring up at the two tower cranes atop Streeterville’s One Bennett Park.

Maybe file this one in the “not surprising news” column, because if there’s one thing you can count on with 69-story towers, it’s that they’ll grow high.

One Bennett Park continues to do just that in Streeterville. How do I know? There are two tell-tale signs of tall buildings. First, the more it hurts your neck to see the top, the taller they are. Second, if most of your progress photos have to be in portrait mode instead of landscape, then you’re looking at a relatively tall building. It’s science.

Wandering Milwaukee: One last tower crane reigns above the east side

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Farwell Tower 1840 North Farwell Avenue

Like the Bat Signal, this distant tower crane led me to 1840 North Farwell Avenue on Milwaukee’s East Side.

If there are more than the five tower cranes I spotted in July around downtown Milwaukee (two at Marquette University, one at the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center, one at 7Seventy7, and this one at 1840 North Farwell Avenue) blame it on my feet, not my heart. I walked until I could spot no more.

I saved the most mysterious for last. According to this article from Urban Milwaukee, this project is called “Farwell Tower.” That’s believable; it’s on Farwell Avenue at Kane Place on the city’s east side. The tower crane gives a solid clue as to the general contractor; Stevens Construction. As for the developer and architect (I always try to include those three entities, CG, developer, and design architect in each story) I’m relying on the aforementioned Urban Milwaukee article, and you should too. Check that link not just for the team involved, but also for the building specs. They’ve also got some great photos, taken far more recently than my July 1st visit.

Find another great photo gallery from Milwaukee Independent, taken July 6 during the first big concrete pour, here.

Photos from July 1 follow:

Uplifting news: Two towers, two tower cranes at The Lincoln Common

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The Lincoln Common

Caisson work at The Lincoln Common will include foundations for TWO tower cranes.

Friday was a busy day for important permits in Chicago.

You read in our August tower crane update that The Lincoln Common would soon be on the board with a tower crane for one of the two 20-story, 269-unit apartment towers going up on the site. Well, the City of Chicago just doubled down on that wager, permitting a second tower crane for the site.

We’ll need to work out some names for these. For now, the city’s permits dub them “East” and “West.” But since they’re in position to build the north and south (2335 and 2345 North Lincoln Ave) towers, we may need to use “North” and South” for them. Or, perhaps the cranes will share duties on each tower, as opposed to being dedicated to one single building. Minor details. East Crane and West Crane will suffice for now.

This means W.E. O’Neil will not only get on the board; they’ll storm it. And their two tower cranes will make up for the recent losses at Elevate Lincoln Park and the DePaul School of Music. And don’t forget, we could get a crane across the street when the Belmont Village senior-living facility gets rolling. Tower cranes galore for Lincoln Park.

The Lincoln Common

East Crane

The Lincoln Common

West Crane