Centaur Construction is entering the tower crane count this weekend with their assembly of the crane at the Nobu Hotel Chicago site, and they’re relishing the moment.
Christina Pascente at Centaur took a bunch of great high-res images of the tower crane going up on Friday and sent them to us. So of course, we’re sharing them. Enjoy!
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.***
We’re starting to see the underside of the ninth floor at the northwest corner of McDonald’s HQ. Plus brick and glass!
The new McDonald’s Headquarters in the West Loop may not quite be ready for the top sesame-seed bun, but McHugh Construction keeps adding ingredients to the burger giant’s nine-story home. (I like to compare progress to building a hamburger, but with the new Apple Store looking like a gigantic Macbook, we can thank our lucky stars Sterling Bay and Gensler decided not to build this HQ to look like a Big Mac. You think the NIMBY’s would have thought that worked well with its surroundings?)
There are new glass panels on a couple sides now, and some sweet brickwork adorning parts of the exterior. If you take into account setbacks and the like, some of McDonald’s has reached nine stories high. It’s a tad early to start worrying about losing a tower crane or two, but the top-down strategy has paid off, as this project rises incredibly fast.
An overhead view of McDonald’s and its two tower cranes by Curtis Waltz at Aerialscapes.
The sweet smell of a foundation permit, fresh of the City presses. 900 West may begin.
The lot at Washington Boulevard and Peoria Street in the West Loop has been cleared, and now a foundation permit has been issued that allows 900 West to move into the site. The 10-story, 22-unit condominium development from Taris Real Estate has already made Chicago news, when Dennis Rodkin at Crain’s reported on the signed contract for one of the building’s two penthouse units for more than $5 million. In addition to the penthouses, there will be two-bed, three-bed, and four-bedroom condos.
Northworks Architects + Planners designed the new building. Power Construction has been tasked with putting all the right pieces in all the right places. Taris plans to have 900 West ready for residents in Summer of 2018.
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.)
The B.U.C. is moving to the South Loop.
The time has come for Building Up Chicago to abandon its West Loop Headquarters and move the entire operation south. South Loop, that is. As we speak, ticker-tape readers, fax machines, and hand-cranked pencil sharpeners are being packed into boxes. After two years of towering above the Kennedy Expressway and all points west, our reporting will soon be done exclusively from the South Loop Bureau.
Fear not, good people. Divvy bikes and durable footwear will still allow us to move throughout the city to all points tower-crane. But expect things to be a little more South Loop-centric, just as they had been for the West Loop.
We watched the Parker Fulton Market grow up and open at 171 North Halsted Street.
No more eagle-eye views of One South Halsted.
We’ll miss you most of all, 625 West Adams.
Luis Monroy, Project Engineer at 625 West Adams, discusses all things tower crane with Emily East and Rashad Young. All three work for Power Construction.
A huge thank you to Luis Monroy and Power Construction, who led me on a hard-hat tour of 625 West Adams on Wednesday. Power topped out the SCB-designed office tower back on May 22. Now, cladding is being installed and has reached the 11th-floor terrace.
Come take a walk with me.
The bracing you see in the photo above (also visible in the top photo) is part of the tie-off reinforcement for the tower crane. The steel braces run from the crane to the core.
Remember the oculus I’ve been showing you on the 19th-floor terrace? We’re now looking at it from eye-level, way off in the corner. This is taken on the 21st (penthouse) floor. Yes, it’s a 20-story tower with a penthouse for a mechanical floor.
This is Eddie. Eddie is a master at hanging glass panels. You can watch him work in the time-lapse video below.
Luis, Emily, and Rashad standing out on the soon-to-be terrace of the 19th floor. Behind them, the inverted tripod that supports the oculus. You may also notice the Sears Tower.
More from the 21st floor.
21st floor looking east.
21st floor looking south. 
21st floor looking north toward the B.U.C. HQ.
21st floor looking west.
Looking out toward the 11th-floor terrace.
The 11th-floor terrace.
A terrace I didn’t know about. This one is on the 7th floor, on the south elevation of the tower. The rebar surrounds what will be planters.
Old St. Patrick’s Church.
I was close enough to the tower crane to climb it. I did not.
The top of the ramp leading to the 6th floor, the last level of parking.
These stairs go up.
These stairs go down.
The ceiling, for now, of the lobby. The lobby ceiling will be about 25 feet high.
The lobby at ground level.
The sun came out after the tour was finished. Thanks a lot, sun. \
And thank you for joining me.
The brand new McDonald’s HQ is poking up through the top of the West Loop.
In one of the most ridiculous comparisons to date, if the new McDonald’s Headquarters being built in the West Loop was a Big Mac, it would be somewhere between the second all-beef patty and the middle bun, with the bottom bun and first patty already in place. That leaves the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions to go before the top bun is craned into place and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
In more technical terms, The McD HQ is up to the sixth floor, as crews from McHugh Construction continue utilizing two tower cranes to get the nine-story, 550,000-square-foot Sterling Bay development in high gear. The Gensler-designed home of the Golden Arches is slated to open early in 2018, which looks like a sure thing the way progress is going.
American Flag, Water Tank, and Caisson Rig along the Lake Street elevated tracks.
A strong indicator of future tower cranes is a present caisson rig. Stalworth Underground has a couple of them on site at Lake and Green Streets for the Hoxton Chicago hotel. Get off the CTA Green Line train at the Morgan for a great view of an American Flag, a water tank, and a caisson rig. A caisson rig with the Stars & Stripes attached, that is. It’ll be a tower crane soon enough.
The Chicago Water Tank and American Flag sit atop East Bank Storage, 730 West Lake Street.
The Jane Byrne Interchange.
Work on the Jane Byrne Interchange continues on the west side of downtown Chicago. Currently, the center lanes of Congress Parkway are a skylight over Clinton, Jefferson, and Desplaines Streets as they’re rebuilt, while supports have been started for the exit ramp that will eventually connect the inbound Dan Ryan to Congress.
And now, random photos:
Building Up Chicago 