Progress Update: 633 South LaSalle

The 633 South LaSalle construction crane towers over the South Loop.

Some progress photos at 633 South LaSalle, as Clark Construction and Adjustable Concrete Construction continue work on the Berkelhamer-designed 18-story, 117-unit student-living tower in the South Loop.

1000M, for the final construction visit?

1000M stand tall above Grant Park.

The days of watching construction at 1000M are drawing to a close. Just a handful of the top levels remain unglazed. Soon the tower crane will come down and this will look like a finished product while crews work on the interior.

1000M gave us the rare thrill of watching a skyscraper begin twice. First when caisson work got underway, and then again, after a pandemic-induced delay left the site dormant for months and months. The tower crane base that had been planted was removed, it went from condos to apartments, the design was tweaked, and it roared back to life early in 2022.

It’s always weirdly sad to me when a building wraps up construction and there’s nothing to watch anymore, but this one legit tugs at the heartstrings, knowing Helmut Jahn isn’t here to enjoy its completion.

1000M should be open to residents in 2024. And please, if you get one of these apartments, invite me over. I’ll even help you move in, if that’s what it takes.

633 South LaSalle (at long last) puts up a tower crane and rises out of the ground [Corrected]

This post has been corrected to show Q Investment Partners of Singapore as the developer.

The tower crane at 633 South LaSalle in the South Loop.

633 South LaSalle has avoided a forced vacation to Spireville and is now underway in the Printers Row area of the South Loop. The tower crane is up, the core has gone 3-D, and any and all delays — pandemic-related or otherwise — are a thing of the past. Thrilled and relieved to see this one get going.

This will be an 18-story co-living development, consisting of 117 units and 381 beds. Why co-living in the South Loop? Students. Roosevelt University, Columbia College, DePaul, East-West University, etc. Lots of kids need lots of places to stay.

Tip o’the cap to Chicago Cityscape for letting me know the tower crane was up.

Here are the players at 633 South LaSalle:

Clark Construction is the general contractor.
Adjustable Concrete Construction is the concrete contractor.
Berkelhamer is the design architect.
FitzGerald is the architect of record.
Q Investment Partners is the developer.

Was I hallucinating when it came to old permits here? There were a bunch of them, I swear. But now there are only three on the City of Chicago website:

Tower crane, issued 3/24/2023
Caissons, issued 4/25/2023
Full build, issued 6/1/2023

Here are some pics. Some much more compelling pics than the bare lot I’ve visited in recent months:

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More from 1000M as it rises into Chicago’s skyline

1000M is at that age where the up-closes aren’t as dramatic as the far-offs. Which is why this post exists in the first place. Wednesday the 12th was as perfect a day as Chicago ever sees in mid-April, and while I didn’t set out to take more progress photos of Helmut Jahn’s South Loop apartment tower, the views once I backed away had their way with me.

So here ya go. A bunch more 1000M photos taken from a variety of perspectives, including Northerly Island (my first real visit there and OMG!), Grant Park, and the Museum Campus. Please enjoy:

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Sun’s out, One’s out

1000M
1000M, 1000 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago’s South Loop.

That’s “One” as in “One Thousand M,” though most folks ’round these parts refer to it as 1000M.

I know I was just here, but it wasn’t sunny that day. So I came back. Nuff said. Here are the pics:

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Catching up on 1000M, the sky-high apartments coming to the South Loop

1000M construction progress, taken from Grant Park, looking west.

1000M got started, then it stopped. And we had to wait a long time for it to getting revved up again. Sort of like when the sequel to your favorite movie is announced, but then the release is delayed. Once it comes out, you’re the first in line to see it. Then you see it 17 more times over the nest week and a half. That’s what I was going to do; watch progress at the rejuvenated 1000M. But, well, I didn’t.

But I did take a look this past Sunday, in the cold of late January. The JAHN-designed tower bringing apartments in the sky to the South Loop looks to have reached the high 30s in floor count, with glazing covering about 20 0f those. And here are some photos to prove I was there:

Is that light? Is that blue sky? This was taken the same day as all the others.

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The Reed tower crane is no more

Topping out is such sweet sorrow. Sure, no one wants to live in a tower that hasn’t topped out yet. But at what cost? Losing another tower crane? Alas, The Reed at Southbank’s topping out meant the loss of its crane was inevitable, and the painstaking process of disassembly is underway.

1400 South Wabash hits the teens in Chicago’s South Loop

1400 South Wabash

I haven’t posted an update at 1400 South Wabash since May? That’s barely tolerable, if not entirely unacceptable. Let’s fix that now, as there’s been a lot of progress by Lendlease and Pepper Construction here. Looks like they’ve reached level 14-ish.

Some reminders:
Developer – CMK Companies
Design Architect – Pappageorge Haymes Partners
General Contractor – Lendlease
Concrete Contractor – Pepper Construction
30 stories
299 apartments
155 parking spaces
3,300 square feet of ground-level retail space
Scheduled opening – early 2023
Quirky-but-true fact – Green and Orange line trains practically run right through the parking deck

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The lowdown on the down-low glazing at 1000M

Glass at ground level on 1000M

I haven’t been playing the construction game for long, so maybe things I see that surprise me aren’t really all that unusual. But I’ll be darned if I can recall ever seeing a highrise get its first panes of glass on the first floor.

That’s exactly what we’ve got at Helmut Jahn’s 1000M (1000 S Michigan Ave.) If I hadn’t been expecting to see it (thanks to a Linkedin post) I might have missed it, since my eyes generally look up as these towers start their skyward climbs. But the glass is indeed there, along the east façade. You might need to peek over the fence to see it.

And now, a photographic progress update of McHugh & McHugh’s work (thanks for positioning the tower crane so I could get the mooncrane shot):

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Another walkaround at 1000M

I said I didn’t want to miss much of the construction at 1000M, yet here we are, more than a month since my last visit. Unacceptable. Let’s fix that now.


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