[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn

^Interesting, staged move-ins are planned to occur here as well. What is this talk about office space in this tower? Is this support space for the hotel or has some leasable office space found its way into the tower. If so, this building really is going to be a marvel of a mixed-use skyscraper: Condos, apartments, hotel, office, retail +pedway, parking, and a rooftop park all contained into a little more than an acre of land. This project would consume a whole sqaure mile of land, if all the space and usages were built in typical sprawling suburbia.




Plus, lowering the ceiling heights reduces the amount of material used in the structure overall. This reduces manufactoring need and assocated embodied energy for additional concrete and rebar, as well as transport of those materials to the site, thus improving sustainability durring the construction phase of the project.

All of these environmental efficiencies are of course to some extent very real. However, let's not get too carried away with what the motivations are here for the shorter-than-market ceiling heights. I think it's relatively safe to assume this is much more Loewenberg-driven value-engineering as opposed to Gang-driven environmental sustainability...