Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
Developers have this curious habit of wanting to maximize their profits, rather than creating an artistic composition of the skyline.
Somewhere around 50 stories, and 1 million sq ft on a quarter-block site is the sweet spot (in Chicago) that balances cost of construction, square footage lost to elevator core, time to opening, and ability to prelease to anchor tenants. If you go taller, the building gets more expensive and takes longer to deliver. Better to exit by selling to a REIT or pension fund, and move on to the next 50-story tower.
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Yup, and if you really look closely you will see that there are all sorts of "Generations" of buildings like this in Chicago. Every couple of decades the formula changes slightly an a whole round of buildings gets built with similar sizes and programs. This started with the first ever wave of spec construction in history (basically 1880's and 1890s Chicago school architecture). The different layers of buildings from each era are what make the skyline interesting, it's not that every building must have a totally different size and format. In fact, I quite like the plateau that has formed along Wacker, certainly a very unique street as a result.