[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I wanted to attend the meeting but just couldn't make it for a variety of reasons. I get here and see we've already devolved into more NY-Chi, Second City inferiority-complex stuff.

The towers are definitely a mixed bag. The BKL tower looks amazing, and the way it interacts with the river is extremely dynamic... it pushes right up to the water and overhangs the riverwalk like the Wards warehouse gone vertical.

On the other hand, the two Pelli towers are way too similar. Pelli has a chance to address the Main and South branches in two unique ways, yet he essentially clones the same tower twice and then makes one taller. As others have already noted, the designs don't seem to have much rationale to them.

The massing is also quite disappointing. Apparently view corridors were in play, but the massing of the three towers does absolutely nothing to shape the public space formed by the river. The dispersed site plan erodes the crisp edge formed by the Mart and the Apparel Center, while doing nothing to evoke the shape of the shoreline.

The circulation is perhaps the biggest disappointment of all. The developers have decided to embrace the cul-de-sac nature of the site, which will prevent Wolf Point from ever truly feeling like a public space. They are providing a riverwalk, but it's a really boring, perfunctory one (except under the BKL tower) with no opportunities to engage the water. There's no sense of how the riverwalk will link to Kinzie and points north, or of how the site plan will be a proper terminus for the LONG east bank riverwalk stretching up to Evanston. There's no link to the west bank, which would drastically shorten walks to Ogilvie and Union and make the site competitive with Wacker. I wanna see the traffic study, not to demand more parking but to demand an alternative that embraces multiple forms of access including Metra, bus, L, pedestrian, and bike.

This is a very well-reasoned critique. ChiTownCity, Dan In Chicago, and Vertigo made similar points. I definitely agree.