Essex On The Park plants a tower crane

Essex On The Park tower crane stub

Essex On The Park has a Stub In The Ground.

Chicago’s tower-crane count is back down to 32, and Essex On The Park won’t stand for it. Thursday, Power Construction planted a stub in the South Loop ground. Surrounded for now by rebar, the foundation will soon (today?) be filled with concrete, which will cure before the full tower crane can be assembled. Let’s watch the middle part of next week for that.

Throwback Thursday: London’s One Blackfriars

One Blackfriars London

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.

 

Alta Roosevelt fills in its final floor

https://twitter.com/thebiggreenw/status/874345009591578626

Like a video-game master, Alta Roosevelt has reached the top level at 801 South Financial Place in the South Loop. The above tweet, from June 12, shows concrete crews pouring the last of Alta’s main floors. There will still be steel added on top for the penthouse, but you won’t see concrete trucks moving in and out of the 33-story apartment tower any longer.

Designed for Wood Partners by Pappageorge Haymes Partners, Alta Roosevelt is delivering 496 rental units with 348 parking spaces to the site immediately north of the new British School, between River City and the Metra rail tracks. Walsh Construction has been on the job since site prep began back in march 2016.

Wicker Park Connection starts poking out of the ground

Wicker Park Connection

The Wicker Park Connection is going 3-D.

The large earthen pit at 1640 West Division Street in Wicker Park shows signs of becoming the Wicker Park Connection, as Linn-Mathes has begun building atop foundation work that began back in the winter. A joint project of the tag-team combo Centrum Partners and Hirsch Associates Architects, the Wicker Park Connection will deliver 140 apartments within the 15-story tower.

An update on progress, and the name, at Atrium Village

Old Town Park Atrium Village

Old Town Park rises as part of the new Atrium Village.

As Onni Group continues construction of their apartment tower as part of the rebuilding of Atrium Village in the Near North neighborhood, a new name has emerged on the Onni website. This 31-story, 405-unit rental tower is now going by the name Old Town Park. Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture designed the development for Onni, which will have studio, one-bed, two-bed, and three-bedroom units. 340 parking spaces will also be included.

1136 South Wabash keeps glowing…errrr, growing… in the South Loop

1136 South Wabash

Looking from the north toward the rising 1136 South Wabash.

Forgive my faux pas. Must be all those yellow forms and the shiny yellow Liebherr adorning 1136 South Wabash that confused me. But it sure is hard to miss.

The 26-story, 320-unit apartment tower from CA Ventures has soared past the CTA Roosevelt platform, past the Hebru Brantley Flyboy mural, on its way to about 300 feet in height. Lendlease is the general contractor, tasked with completing the SCB design for a 2018 opening.

Topped out, 8 East Huron drops its tower crane

8 East Huron tower crane

The tower crane at 8 East Huron fades away behind Holy Name Cathedral.

Chicago’s ever-changing tower-crane count has changed yet again, dropping to 34 as the crane at 8 East Huron comes down in River North. Perched high atop the intersection of State and Huron, the pretty yellow Liebherr crane did what it was born to do, and as of Thursday afternoon is halfway to the ground.

8 East Huron, the 26-story apartment tower from  Harlem Irving Companies and CA Ventures, is on schedule to deliver 105 new units by early Fall 2017, with 31 parking spaces and about 2,800 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

This was Clark Construction’s only tower crane in Chicago, so here’s hoping we can get 145 South Wells on the books soon, and get Clark back on the board.

 

A steely start at The Ardus

The Ardus 676 North LaSalle Street

Steel on site at The Ardus in River North.

The Ardus formerly known as 676 North LaSalle Street (I’ll never stop using that joke, so don’t try to fight it) has moved past the digging-a-hole stage and has started erecting steel beams.

At eight stories, The Ardus is on the cusp of needing a tower crane, but with no permit in sight, it looks like street cranes will do the heavy lifting. That’s okay though. Construction by any other means is still worth watching.

And while new life springs from the ground to the east, on the west side of the lot, the old 676 building still looks completely gutted, as GC Method Construction prepares to renovate the structure while adding two additional stories to the top.

 

Many, many photos, as Solstice On The Park continues upward

Solstice On The Park

Solstice On The Park is next to a park. You get lots of views like this one.

Solstice On The Park, the 27-story high rise by storied Chicago architecture firm Studio Gang, has climbed to the 20th floor on the corner of 56th Street and Cornell Avenue in Hyde Park. Antheus Capital and Mac Properties are putting up 250 apartments in the tower, on what used to be a surface-and-underground parking deck. That lost parking will be replaced by 300 spaces in a multi-level parking deck on the north side of the development.

It’s been more than three months since I’ve checked on Linn-Mathes’ progress here, so…*lots* of photos to get you caught up.

Essex On The Park wraps up caisson work; sheet driving up next

Essex On The Park

Time to dismantle the caisson rig and let the sheet driver get at it.

Case Foundation is done, and now it’s Stalworth Underground’s turn, as foundation work at Essex On The Park continues in the South Loop. With all the big holes drilled into the earth, up next comes the piles of sheeting stacked in the southwest corner of the site, and then Essex can get a tower crane moved in. I hope.