The tower crane has been planted at 741 North Wells in River North. Expect to see full assembly starting Tuesday of next week.
What is this? I’m stumped.
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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.
Just in the nick of time, before August ended, 210 North Aberdeen got the tower crane up in the air. Work was supposed to have started Monday, but weather may certainly have hampered those proceedings. But Tuesday and Wednesday were beautiful days, and it looked like the finished touches were being wrapped up Wednesday afternoon. My guess is that crane is lifting all manner of heavy stuff by Thursday morning. Shout-out to Power Construction and All Crane for breaking our mini-Chicago-tower-crane slump.
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We lost our third tower crane of August last week, as the Golden Lifter Of Heavy Things was dismantled and hauled away at One Six Six (166 N Aberdeen). It joins 160 North Elizabeth and 853 West Blackhawk (Big Deahl) in the history books. We thank them all for their service.
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I’m not upset the pretty lights in the sky at Big Deahl are gone; I’m upset the tower crane at Common Lincoln Park holding the pretty lights at Big Deahl is gone. Alas, lots of good things come to an end. It’s at least nice to see lots of windows on The Seng.
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20-ish. About 20. ~20. Something like that. I haven’t had time to get around town and see two of our cranes for myself, but I’ve concrete (heh) evidence of the Obama Center’s third crane, and I’m comfortable assuming the 4445 W Irving Park crane is still there.
Since counting, but not posting, 21 at the start of July, we’ve lost 354 North Union. That means no cranes were erected in July, which sounds wrong, but I don’t think I’m missing any. 311 West Huron, 150 North Ashland, and 741 North Wells are all permitted but not planted yet.
Here they are, going north to south for this edition:
4445 W Irving Park3501 N Halsted853 W Blackhawk & 1475 N Kingsbury (The Big Deahl Phase II)920 N Wells808 N Cleveland (The 808 Cleveland)751 N Hudson (HUGO)166 N Aberdeen164 N Peoria (900 Randolph)160 N Morgan160 N Elizabeth 732 W Randolph21 N May (Embry)1044 W Van Buren234 W Polk (The Reed)1000 S Michigan (1000M)1400 S WabashThe Obama Presidential Center, image courtesy of Lakeside Alliance on Linkedin
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Not only is the tower crane up at 920 North Wells, but there’s construction fencing up in the next block south on Wells Street. Call it 868 North Wells or 210 West Chestnut, but you better call it soon, because that fence means demolition is imminent for the former Irwin A Moon building on the Moody Bible Institute campus. Demolishing it will make room for 878 North Wells, the 25-story, 428-unit second tower on JDL Development’s North Union agenda. All we need do now is watch for the demo permit.
Tower crane enthusiasts are salivating.
Today’s gallery is a two-fer. You get to see 920’s brand-spankin’-new tower crane, and you get a few shots thrown in of 868 before its demise. Sorry I wasn’t patient enough to wait for the sun to show up. Enjoy.
From the LFrom the L (return trip)
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The Embry tower crane stub. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.
The tower crane has been planted, and planted deep, at Embry in the West Loop. So deep, in fact, that I not been tipped off to the first segment being delivered (Thanks, @jrock1449!) I might have walked past the site without noticing it.
Okay, that’s ridiculous. I definitely would have still peered through the fence to see what was going on. But the crane really is planted deep in the ground, so the top base section sits below the height of the construction fence.
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Like an injured center, it was tall but unable to play. But this past weekend, the rest of the tower crane went up at 732 West Randolph. I included it in the June survey, since the tower had been erected.
Check out a few shots of people in high places who need not worry about me coming for their jobs:
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The way 920 North Wells keeps crashing through milestones, I’m worried if I blink, it’ll be done. Its latest trick is planting the tower crane stub, which was permitted May 17. Keep an eye out, as it’s likely, the way things are going, for the tower crane to be completely erected by the end of this week.
In the meantime, have a whole mess o’ photos of a tower crane base at a construction site. (iPhones come in handy for peeking over fences)
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