The glassy, sunny Paragon Chicago is growing into its lot at 1326 South Michigan Avenue in the South Loop.
Few of the city’s construction sites bask in the sunlight quite like The Paragon Chicago.
Walsh Construction continues to make upward progress on the future 47-story apartment tower by Solomon Cordwell Buenz. The joint effort by Murphy Development Group and CIM Group will deliver 500 new units to the South Loop upon its opening next spring.
Essex on the Park, and the Plane.
Not North Michigan Avenue, where the sidewalks are narrow and choked with pedestrians. This is South Michigan Avenue, in the South Loop. Where one can actually stop on the sidewalk and take in the sights without getting in anyone else’s way. The Other Mile. The cool Michigan Avenue.
Essex on the Park keeps rising higher and higher at 808 South Michigan Avenue, on its way to 56 stories in height. Credit Power Construction for the progress; Hartshorne Plunkard Associates for the design; Oxford Capital Group for the development.
One Grant Park rises above the trees at the south end of–you guessed it–Grant Park.
You know lots about One Grant Park by now, right? 76 stories, 792 apartments, and not even the biggest tower McHugh Construction is working on in Chicago right now. No respect, I’m tellin’ ya.
Let’s just cut right to some progress photos then.
As it approaches its ultimate 30-story height, the two Hilton Hotels at 1101 South Wabash Avenue has added four levels of curtain wall above the parking podium. The combination Hilton Homewood Suites and Hilton Garden Inn tower is now expected to open with 342 rooms.
This rendering from Gensler shows the sweet 5-story Columbia College Student Center just getting started in the South Loop.
We can confirm there won’t be a tower crane, but that won’t make the glass-encased Columbia College Student Center any less fun to watch. Case Foundation is out at the corner of Wabash and 8th in the South Loop as we speak, drilling caissons into the soil, and that work never requires a tower crane anyway.
57 rock caissons are precisely what Case is on the case for, according to a post from them back in February. After that, Pepper Construction starts sending the five-story, Gensler-designed facility vertical. Columbia College plans to have their new center open before 2018 closes.
Last week, we posted several updates on construction progress in the South Loop. Sadly for us and our cameras, we picked a foggy, miserable day to be out and about. Well, Tuesday was no such day. And with bright sunshine beaming all morning and afternoon, we headed back down to the South Loop for brighter, happier photos of the goings-on.
Pepper Construction began site prep last week at the new Columbia College Student Center in the South Loop.
A permit issued Friday sets the stage for work to begin on the Columbia College Student Center at Wabash Avenue and 8th Street in the South Loop. That would explain why a crew from Pepper Construction was on site last week, installing sidewalk protection and getting the lot prepped for activity.
Monday, Case Foundation posted on its Facebook page that they would begin drilling 57 rock caissons in March. With a little cooperative weather, Columbia plans to open the Gensler-designed student center late this year.
Despite the relatively wide footprint, at five stories, it’s not likely the new facility will require use of a tower crane, but we’ve reached out to Pepper to find out for sure. We should know soon.
