Category Archives: New Construction

It’s Marlowe time. 675 North Wells lands a permit

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Marlowe 675 North Wells

Architectural rendering of Marlowe, 675 North Wells Street, from Antunovich Associates.

Are you ready for Marlowe? Because it’s ready for you.

The surface parking lot at 675 North Wells Street in River North that’s been closed off for several weeks will soon open up again. To construction equipment. Lennar Multifamily Companies (LMC) is the developer for the 15-story apartment tower that received a foundation permit from the City of Chicago on Wednesday. (You may know about Lennar from their Gateway West Loop building. It has pretty lights on the rooftop pool, so you know.)

Designed by Antunovich Associates, Marlowe will have 176 studio, 1-bedroom, and 2-bedroom apartments across its 15 stories, plus 11,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. Power Construction will be the general contractor.

The office of Brendan Reilly 42nd Ward has all the info you care to know about Marlowe, plus lots of pretty renderings of floor plans and such. You can see it all here.

Marlowe 675 North Wells

The Foundation Permit, issued Wednesday April 12.

 

Hilton, Hilton, and Hilton progress at McCormick Place

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Hilton McCormick Place

This new tower crane at the three Hiltons at McCormick Place has to build 3 hotels.

The Prairie District’s newest tower crane is showing the fruits of its labor, as work moves past foundation stage and begins to progress upward at (ready for this?) the Hilton Garden Inn Chicago McCormick Center, the Hampton Inn by Hilton Chicago McCormick Center, and the Home2 Suites by Hilton Chicago McCormick Center.

Those three entities from Hilton, designed by Antunovich Associates, will be contained within this one 23-story, 466-room tower. McHugh Construction is the general contractor, and they’ve achieved the third dimension as the tower starts to stick up out of the ground.

The Moxy Hotel grows a core in River North

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Moxy Hotel

Work atop the core at the Moxy Hotel in River North. #54 is watching.

While the skyscrapers were getting all the attention, the Moxy Hotel project at 530 North LaSalle Drive in River North has begun shooting up out of the ground. The Pepper Construction joint has an elevator core jutting about four stories in the air, while ground work continues around it. This design from DLR Group is only slated for eight stories, so don’t blink on it, or it’ll be done while you napped.

3Eleven has topped out, endangering yet another Chicago Tower Crane

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3Eleven topped out

The top of the topped-out 3Eleven, at 311 West Illinois Street in River North.

Word came down from Power Construction that 3Eleven, the 25-story apartment tower from The John Buck Company, topped out this past Friday. Sure, that’s mostly good news. Good news in that the 245 apartments in the FitzGerald Associates-designed tower will are that much closer to being inhabitable. Good news in that the 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space can soon open to new businesses. Good news in that parishioners at Assumption Catholic Church will soon have parking again, after the church parking lot was removed to make room for 3Eleven.

But the topping out also means we lose another tower crane in Chicago. One of the pretty yellow ones, too. And you know how much I love those. Who else remembers August of last year, when the stub was first planted, like a newborn baby coming home from the hospital? Sigh. I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry….

Here are some photos of the topped-out 3Eleven. Look at them, while I try to compose myself.

 

As McDonald’s progresses, Sterling Bay pitches @1045 retail space

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McDonald's @1045

The McDonald’s HQ in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago.

Along with construction progress at the new McDonald’s Corporation Headquarters in the West Loop comes signage for available retail space, which Sterling Bay has dubbed @1045. An homage to its north frontage at 1045 West Randolph Street, @1045 is 48,000 square feet of ground-floor space, divisible to 2,000-square-foot parcels.

But enough of the real estate talk. What matters here is that McHugh Construction continues to push off the ground and into the sky. The @1045 signage is a nice touch, but construction is the real attraction.

Wintrust Arena heads to the fourth quarter up big

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Wintrust Arena

Wintrust Arena, part of The Collection at McCormick Square.

I haven’t seen what’s going on inside Wintrust Arena (though Shia Kapos of the Sun-Times has) but the outside is looking like it could host basketball or a convention any day now. But we’ll have to wait until fall, when the new facility begins hosting DePaul Blue Demon basketball.

Clark Construction still has their game-faces on as they work to complete the 10,000-seat Pelli Clarke Pelli design. Maybe there’s no full-court press on yet, but Fall will be here before we know it.

No. 508 slowly putting down a foundation in Lake View

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No. 508

No. 508, at 508 West Diversey Parkway in Lake View, sets a foundation.

No. 508

Rendering of No. 508 from Broder Properties.

The luxury apartment tower from Broder Properties at 508 West Diversey Parkway continues its foundation work in Lake View, albeit slowly. Our last look back in January showed some pretty deep digging and shoring, and now considerable concrete has been poured on the site. Designed by Pappageorge Haymes Partners, No. 508, as dubbed by Broder, will rise to 12 stories, have 53 units, and, according to the renderings, include some ground-floor retail. Completion of No. 508 is slated for this year, so the crew from general contractor Macon Construction Group has their tasks cut out for them.

Cook County Central Campus Health Center plants a tower crane

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Cook County Central Campus Health Center tower crane

Spring is the season for sprouting tower cranes, like this one for the Cook County Central Campus Health Center.

Thanks to a little birdie’s tip, we heard the nine-story, 282,000-square-foot Cook County Central Campus Health Center at the corner of Damen Avenue and Polk Street planted a tower crane stub this past week. The project was designed by Gensler, in collaboration with Forum Studios. Also joining the design/build team is Clayco, Inc. which is serving as the general contractor as well. They got some help from Stalworth Underground, who drove the sheeting for the foundation two weeks ago that you’ll see in the photos below.

 

One Bennett Park, Two Tower Cranes

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One Bennett Park two tower cranes

There they are! The two tower cranes of One Bennett Park.

A little over a week ago, One Bennett Park finally added to the tower crane stub that’s been planted on the west side of the growing tower for months. And now, I can confirm that second tower crane, West Crane, if you will, is up and running on Grand Avenue in Streeterville. Running and lifting.

One Bennett Park joins the Simpson-Querrey Biomedical Research Center, also in Streeterville, Wanda Vista Tower on the New East Side, and the West Loop’s McDonald’s Headquarters in the Two-Crane Club.

One Grant Park puts up One Grand Crane

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One Grant Park tower crane

That’s most of the One Grant Park tower crane in the distance, but don’t worry. I’ll get you closer.

Accumulating tower crane parts hinted at a full-fledged assembly. And sure enough, One Grant Park added a tower crane to its arsenal over the weekend. One week after planting the stub in concrete, Central Contractors Service (that’s the ALL Crane folks; they know tower cranes) was back on South Loop soil, installing the shiny red Potain MD 485B (yep, I can still read a permit.)