Glass is now in session at 919 West Fulton

If you look about midway up 919 West Fulton, you’ll see the first level of glass, plus a little bit of the second, has been installed on the curtain wall. I don’t know when that got started, but the last couple times I’ve gone by here (on the L) I’ve been looking toward street level to see if there were any windows in yet. So I might be lucky I didn’t miss them this time. I was walking west on Fulton east of Halsted, and that’s when I first noticed it, just beyond the FULTON MARKET DISTRICT sign. you see above.

So that’s another milestone reached, with topping out and removing the tower crane already achieved. Congrats to the team of:

Skender – General Contractor
Adjustable Concrete – Concrete Contractor
Fulton Street Companies – Developer
FitzGerald – Design Architect
And everyone else on the build.

The 11-story, 530,000-square-foot office building is scheduled for completion in 2025.

919 West Fulton drops the tower crane; 7 remain in Chicago’s skies

919 West Fulton no longer has a tower crane, having taken it down last week. Skender (who watched crane removal up close and personal in that Instagram video) topped out the building in July, so it stuck around for a bit before being lowered to the ground.

The Fulton Market District still has one tower crane in operation, at 220 North Ada. There are six others around town:

2 at UChicago Medicine in Hyde Park
Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park
Project H.O.O.D. in Grand Crossing
1723 South Michigan in the South Loop
400 Lake Shore in Streeterville

We have one permit awaiting erection, at the Thompson Center in The Loop. I was told yesterday that should go up by the end of the month.

Craneless 919 West Fulton, photographed September 10, 2024:

Skender proclaims topping out of 919 West Fulton

919 West Fulton has topped out. Photo courtesy of Connor Hirsch at Skender Construction.

A post Wednesday afternoon on Skender’s Instagram Stories announced the topping out of 919 West Fulton in the Fulton Market District. The West Loop office building, now at its ultimate 11-story height, topped out less than 10 months after receiving a foundation permit, on September 29 of last year. The official groundbreaking was held in December 2023.

Congratulations to Skender and their concrete partner Adjustable Concrete, developer Fulton St. Companies, and design architect FitzGerald.

As of Friday July 12, curtain wall installation hadn’t begun, so that’s the next big milestone to watch for.

All photo were taken July 12:

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.

Cladding is Darn Near Done at 633 South LaSalle

Top off your glass for you? That’s what they’re doing at 633 South LaSalle, as the curtain wall/cladding/whatever you wanna call it rises up Q Investment Partners’ 18-story residential tower in the South Loop. Only about one-and-a-half floors remain in need of glazing.

Clark Construction has been working on this FitzGerald-designed development for awhile now, before and after a slight pause in the financing game, with the goal of having residents begin moving in next year. It looks more and more every day like they’ll easily meet that deadline.

As you’ll see by clicking on the Melrose Ascension Capital link above, 633 South LaSalle will have units starting under $1,700/month. For being so close to The Loop, that seems like a nice price.

919 West Fulton continues trending upward in the West Loop

An overhead view of 919 West Fulton from Skender on Instagram.

As you can see from Skender’s Instagram post above, Fulton Street Companies‘ latest development, 919 West Fulton, an 11-story office building in the heart of the West Loop/Fulton Market District, continues its progress. All work is above street level now.

Photos were taken Monday, April 22:

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.


Glass goes up, tower crane comes down, at 633 South LaSalle

Carl, working high atop the South Loop, taking down the tower crane.

There’s glass, but alas, the tower crane has passed. And so 633 South LaSalle attains a couple milestones of progress.

Friday and Saturday were the crane-removal days, as you can see in Carl’s Instagram video above (give him a LIKE). That’s Central Contractors Service’s rig out there wrapping up the dismantling. As for glass installation, that’s been going on for a couple weeks now.

As a reminder: Q Investment Partners and Melrose Ascension Capital are adding 358 beds (apartments and co-living units) to the South Loop, next to Metra’s LaSalle Street station. As long as all goes to plan from here on out, those beds should be sleep-in-able early in 2025.

Photos were taken on the second day of crane removal, April 6:

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.


919 West Fulton sprouts above street level

919 West Fulton from under the L on Lake Street.

919 West Fulton had just started poking up out of the ground last time we visited. Now, you can walk along North Sangamon and look up to see progress, as the core juts skyward on this future office building from *Fulton Street Companies.

*Remember the whole 917 vs 919 thing from earlier this month? It looks like perhaps there’s a resolution, as that link from Fulton Street Companies now refers to this project as 919. The old link, the 917 link, is dead.

With the full building permit in hand for this one, having been issued back in November, here are a few more of the players on this team (shameless attempt on my part to chime in on March Madness):
FitzGerald – Design Architect
Thornton Tomasetti – Structural Engineer
Midwest Masonry – Masonry Contractor
Edwards Engineering – Refrigeration, Ventilation Contractor
DW Mechanical Group – Plumbing Contractor
Maron Electric Company – Electrical Contractor
MAP Strategies – Permit Expeditor

Progress continues from Skender and Adjustable. Check it out, photographed on Wednesday, March 20:

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.


633 South LaSalle has topped out in the South Loop

Clark Construction’s Instagram announcement that 633 South LaSalle has topped out.

633 South LaSalle has topped out in the South Loop. Clark Construction said so on their Instagram (and Twitter) account Friday afternoon, stating the project had topped out earlier in the week. The 18-story tower will have apartments and co-living spaces.

Congratulations are in order for the entire 633 team, including:

Q Investment Partners – Developer
Melrose Ascension Capital – Developer
Clark Construction – General Contractor
Adjustable Concrete Construction – Concrete Contractor
FitzGerald – Architects
Berkelhamer – Architects

Completion is expected in 2025.

Fear not. 633 South LaSalle is back in action

633 South LaSalle under bright sunny skies.

If you compare today’s photo gallery with those from our last visit to 633 South LaSalle, you may be a tad taken aback by the elevation change. You’d be forgiven, as this one seemed to go on a brief sabbatical over the winter.

Chicago YIMBY has the story of some new financial arrangements that assure 633 South LaSalle will continue on to completion.

The Team:

Q Investment Partners – Developer
Melrose Ascension Capital – Developer
Clark Construction – General Contractor
Adjustable Concrete Construction – Concrete Contractor
FitzGerald – Architects
Berkelhamer – Architects

The Permits:

Tower crane – issued 03/24/2023
Caissons – issued 04/25/2023
Full building – issued 06/01/2023
Passenger elevators – issued 09/06/2023
Hoist – issued 09/08/2023

The Pics (taken 03/02/2024):

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.

919 West Fulton goes construction progress 3D

Skender and Adjustable have added the 3rd dimension to 919 West Fulton,

It’s true that we first visited 919 West Fulton* just last week to check on progress. But when in Rome, you snap photos of Rome. Or something. I had to go by the site over the weekend, and saw significant work to get this future office building up to street level. That’s worth documenting. Besides, there aren’t that many tower-crane jobs happening in Chicago at the moment.

*Yep, that link from developer Fulton Street Companies refers to this project as *917* West Fulton. Everything else uses *919* for it. The permits don’t help; they’re all addressed to 217 N. Sangamon.

For now, I’m going with 919, even though siding with the developer is generally the better way to go. I just like the “nine” ending instead of “seven.” We’ll get it straightened out in good time. Or maybe this building will get a random moniker that makes moot the whole 917/919 controversy.

Enjoying the photos? Metra and CTA rides (and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee), Zipcars, Divvy Bikes, camera lenses, domain fees, snacks & energy drinks, and comfortable walking shoes add up. You can help offset expenses by making a greatly-appreciated donation to Building Up Chicago.