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Originally Posted by ChiPhi
Is the choice between the cantilever, a transfer floor and continuing with the old design of a reduced depth that is economically unrealistic? Or is the last of the three also impossible at this point?
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I'm no engineer, but from what I understand they need to make the floor plates bigger to make them more efficient and therefore profitable. The only way to do that is to spread the extreme load bearing capacity of the NW side of the site evenly across the site. This essentially requires the construction of a MASSIVE transfer floor which will essentially be a cantilever whether it's as dramatic as the current plan or not. The could eliminate the "stem", but at that point they are building the exact same transfer floor whether it's right on top of the existing structure or elevated 50 feet above it. So I suppose they could make it look like there is no cantilever, but it will be there either way and cost almost the same either way so I've heard they want to make it dramatic to increase the value/notoriety of the property.
They could still build the full height, but it's much more expensive because the floor plates would be ultra inefficient for rental.
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Originally Posted by ardecila
How do you figure? The foundation's already in the ground, so Related is paying for 1047' of height whether they use it all or not.
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Not really. From what I understand they basically paid a price that was basically only slightly more than what this would have been as a vacant lot. The foundations are a sunk cost at this point and should be disregarded in all economic decisions for the property. You can't get that money back anymore.
Also, it's not as if they aren't using the full load bearing capacity of the foundations. They are just shifting the capacity to hold the same amount of SF and weight in less height.
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Also - cramming FAR into a lower height makes sense for office property, where added lease depth is desirable, but not for residential or hotel where you want to maximize the perimeter for access to light. People will pay more for a light-filled unit than they will for a deep one with a solitary window at the end. If you can save on foundation costs it makes sense to quash the height, but as I already said, the foundation for a supertall at Waterview is a (literally) sunk cost.
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You are forgetting this tower was one of the skinniest ever proposed. The floor plates in this were something like 15,000 SF above the transfer floor and I'm sure they had a massive loss factor (probably 30%+ in the lower floors) due to elevators, elevator lobbies, utility runs, wider columns, etc.. So we are talking floors with like 11,000 usable SF MAX. This means you are looking at MAYBE 8 unit's per floor if you really cram them in. At the same time you are paying out the ass for all sorts of sheer bracing because the structure is so damn skinny and supports for extremely heavy loads in the lower floors.
Or you can just revert to the typical 22,500 SF floor plate of the rest of the building and have a more typical loss factor of maybe 18-20% and have 18,000 SF of usable space per floor and comfortably fit 12 or 13 units on each floor. It's not as if this building is going to have any trouble with getting like anyhow considering it already equals the height of all the buildings around it and the "stem" will rise above them all giving the building uninhibited views in all directions. Remember, they are never going to redevelop LaSalle Wacker and the North and East sides face streets and the river. The only possible redevelopment site would be due south and that's a relatively new building that I can't imagine being redeveloped in the next 20 or 30 years. And, if it is, odds are the developers would give this tower space because their tenants wouldn't like peering directly into someone's window 10 feet outside of theirs anymore than Waterview's residents would.
So basically you'd have to spend all sorts of extra money for less efficient usage of the FAR to build it to 1047' so you can see why they don't give a fuck if they could build to 1047' because they'd rather reallocate the strength of the existing foundations to support a shorter, cheaper, structure.