[Swicago Swi Sox]

The parking situation was brought up at the meeting as well. I guess most of the 240 parking spaces will be for the apartments while the hotel will use a valet system, story the cars at one of the many under street surface lots in the area. The developer said that the under street parking in that area is pretty under utilized (something like 30 or 40%, although I don't know when they measure that utilization).

I actually think the podium is not very oppressive. The North end is only as high as is allowed by the view corridor. They said at the meeting that is was about 30' high, but it looks much high in the rendering. Maybe it is 30' at the highest point of the street as it slopes up. If there were not the height restriction, plus more parking crammed in, the podium could have been 8 or 9 stories tall like other SCB projects, and then would have been more oppressive in my opinion. On the south side will be a public restaurant with roof top dining. They said they aim to make it more of a neighborhood restaurant and less of a hotel restaurant. That is good in theory at least. Plus both of the sides of podium have nice expanses of glass on their Park Street side, which is much different that the Sheraton next door which is pretty much a fortress from the North Water Street side.

Granted that the New Street side is pretty much a shear wall of stone and glass, but that street is kind of a lost cause.