The view from the B.U.C. HQ is still somewhat limited, until McDonald’s rises a few more floors.
If you live in a West Loop condo with a nice balcony (or a drone), you might just have a great view of construction from above the new McDonald’s Headquarters. For the rest of us, circling the block bounded by Randolph, Carpenter, Washington, and Aberdeen is the only way to get a good look at proceedings. So that’s what I did.
Can I hang out down there, if I promise to be reaaaalllly careful?
One Grant Park looks like a playground. It isn’t, of course. Unless you’re skilled laborers paid to work there, and then I bet it’s all-day fun.
For now, One Grant Park is still seeing most of its action below street level. There are tunnels and rings of rebar running throughout the site, like a corn maze on an Iowa farm, minus the tractor rides and hay bales. It’s cool enough to stand around and watch, that maybe McHugh Construction will put a gift shop at the exit. Some hot apple cider and a scale model of Rafael Viñoly Architects‘ tower would make nice Christmas gifts, no?
Looking east to west across the ever-changing scene of Vista Tower.They
Three weeks is far too long to go between photo galleries of what’s going on at Vista Tower. Especially when the landscape changes on a daily basis. McHugh Construction continues to entertain with lumber, rebar, concrete, and tower cranes. There’s a lot happening here, as you’re about to see.
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 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.
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.)
Sections of tower crane are readied for assembly at One Grant Park.
The crane-building crane is on the scene.
The highs and lows of One Grant Park include below-grade core work, and preparations for building a tower crane. The tower crane base was planted Friday of last week, so the foundation has had time to set up properly. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ll put it together over the weekend. There’s plenty of room to work within the site, so street closures don’t seem likely.
Meanwhile, grab a stepladder and go watch the work at the east side of One Grant Park. Workers are deep down working on the elevator core. And they’re using fire!
Working down low on the core. Do you see fire?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under construction at 822 North Clark Street.
Rendering from Dixon + Associates.
At 822 North Clark Street in the Near North, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seems to be getting along splendidly without the tower crane it shed back in February. Architect David Dixon of Dixon + Associates in Salt Lake City shared some of the features of his design. There will be a partial floor below grade for parking, then six stories above grade. A two-story chapel is included, with the possibility of adding a second, smaller chapel on the top floor in the future. There will also be an outdoor, landscaped courtyard on the fourth floor.
McHugh Construction is on the build.
The old tennis courts with junk strewn about them long since demolished, Elevate Lincoln Park continues to grow along North Lincoln Avenue in (of course) Lincoln Park. Where once stood condos and retail shops will soon be Baker Development Corporation‘s mixed-use project. Designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Elevate Lincoln Park will deliver 191 rental units, plus three levels of parking and a whole bunch of ground-floor commercial space. McHugh Construction is on the job as general contractor.
You’ll see signage in the following photos telling you to expect Elevate to be ready this summer. A delay getting started set that back, but Baker Development still hopes to have Elevate Lincoln Park open before 2017 closes.
It’s East Crane vs. West Crane in the Battle of the Cores at Vista Tower.
It’s time for another installment of Vista Tower Photo Gallery. What’s new in the New East Side? There are two cores competing for sunshine, the way trees do in a crowded forest. It would make a good reality show, if it wasn’t McHugh Construction responsible for building both segments. There’s no reason they crews at each core should compete against each other. Unless a passing photographer started some trash talk about how much faster West seems than East. But no one would do that. Right?
Building Up Chicago 