CHICAGO | River Point | 730 FT | 52 FLOORS

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

See that huge chunk above the platform "tunnel"? I think it's a full story tall. The trains already pass beneath the Lake Street "bridge", so why would they suddenly need an extra 10+ feet of space overhead to pass under what is, essentially, a really wide bridge?

^ Soil?

You need a decent root system to get sizable trees, plus I'm sure we wouldn't want the tree roots damaging the concrete structure above the train tracks. Water leakage, etc ensues which I imagine would increase maintenance/repair costs.

Also, it's not 100% clear on the renderings you provided that the park isn't elevated in the original design as well.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by schwerve

The entire lot slopes south and east. The current design appears to set the height of the park based upon the requirements of the north portal and maintain that height to Lake Street. Not sure if that was overlooked in the initial designs or changed due to costs.

I understand the idea, but the least Pickard Chilton could do would be to provide a long staircase instead of a wall. The staircase could have seating areas embedded, planters, etc.

Riverside Plaza is a continuous, mostly flat promenade at bridge level, paralleling the river. When it gets extended up to Lake, River Point will be a really awkward transition, forcing people to ascend a long flight of steps running perpendicular to the river to access the plaza, or descend down to river level.

I'm also worried that Hines might lock up the river level the way Boeing has. I assume this is to prevent vandalism, but what's the point of sending all this public funding to developers if they build a park that nobody can ever access? At least the boathouse would have provided some funding for maintenance and activity to deter vandalism, but without it the design of this park will only be pretty in renderings.

I thought architects today had a far better understanding of public space than those who designed the awful, sterile plazas of the 60s (hello Illinois Center). The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces has been required reading for 30 years now.

[SamInTheLoop]

Did anybody else laugh as Rahm holds a press conference to announce the city's $29 million investment in this project - that was essentially approved 4 years ago......I definitely feel this is a poor use of that much TIF money, especially for the disappointing changes to the park's design......the developers don't need this much corporate welfare (do they need any at all?) for a riverfront park this unnispiring......plus, don't forget - having this park is a great onsite amenity for the property itself and is of financial benefit to the owner, so it's not as if they're being forced to build some sort of adjacent, pure-public amenity from which the owner receives no benefit....

I also found it funny that this was announced with big fanfare as a total spec project - the first in some 13-14 years, as if construction were to start in a month or two......but nah, just by the end of the year, by which time it might not be an actual total spec project afterall, as I'd think there's a half-decent chance Hines may be able to land a 200-400k sq ft tenant by then....

One important thing, though, that this majority equity financing from Ivanhoe Cambridge illustrates about the market is that some institutional investors are beginning to believe that through a combination of very high prices for existing Class A office buildings (particularly 'trophy' buildings), relative lack of those currently on the market, and construction costs (other than labor) having turned down somewhat over the last few years, it now makes - at least marginally, and perhaps more - greater financial sense (in terms of projected risk-adjusted returns) to build as opposed to buy. This is interesting....



Perhaps in questionable taste, I'm going to go ahead and follow-up on my post here. The actual tower itself here is actually still quite aways from true construction. I think it might be a full 18-19 months until work on the tower is to begin. My understanding is it's only the park and related infrastructure that will get started at the end of this year. So, it's quite possible that this won't even by the first nor second new office tower delivered in the new cycle, and I'd bet that this won't actually be a true spec tower by the time construction finally begins, as I think they'll have landed an anchor tenant, 2 anchor tenants or an anchor tenant + smaller tenant(s)....

[ardecila]

^^ There are other ways to get developers to build public space, but we pretty much give away the farm by requiring every large project to go through a PD process where the sky's the limit. The city has to apply an extra, costly level of scrutiny and coordinate with the development team, while the city totally gives up the "carrot" of density bonuses that New York uses for as-of-right projects.

[Northwest]

From the Wolf Point thread:

Originally Posted by markh9

Forgive the glare.

*snip*



View from Apparel Mart.


Proposed River Point dev.


A few notes to follow...

Is it just me, or does the rendering of the River Point tower look a little bit short in the first photo?

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Soil?

You need a decent root system to get sizable trees, plus I'm sure we wouldn't want the tree roots damaging the concrete structure above the train tracks. Water leakage, etc ensues which I imagine would increase maintenance/repair costs.

Giant trees aren't integral to good design. If that's really the reason for the extra height/depth, it is, IMO, a pretty shitty tradeoff.

[andydie]

really happy that a lot of great new additions like this one will be built in Chicagoland

[i_am_hydrogen]

This one is in my building, so I won't have to travel far.

WHAT: 444 W. Lake Street Development Project - "River Point"

WHO: Hosted by the Fulton River District Association (FRDA) and Alderman Reilly

WHEN: Monday, June 11th at 5:30 P.M.

WHERE: 300 N. LaSalle Street River Level Conference Center

[ardecila]

Thanks for the heads up. I really wanna see this meeting after missing the Wolf Point one.

[denizen467]

^ Fortunately it's just up the river from you - you can even dock right out front. That's an unholy number of locks to go through though.

[ardecila]

Hopefully I don't run into any carp on the way up. I hear those things can be ferocious.

[denizen467]

LOL. You, sir, are unconventionally bicoastal.

[Chicago_Forever]

Did anyone make it to tonight's meeting? I would have gone but got caught up doing other stuff. Any new info?

[BraveNewWorld]

Originally Posted by Chicago_Forever

Did anyone make it to tonight's meeting? I would have gone but got caught up doing other stuff. Any new info?

That's true, got any photos for us Hydrogen ?

[ardecila]

I attended the meeting. Nothing was shown that isn't already on the website, although they had a beautiful model that answered a lot of questions. No photos from me, forgot the camera. The overall tone was pretty constructive - the neighborhood residents accept the idea of a tower but they had pretty valid concerns about sidewalk capacity, access, the Canal grade crossing, and the construction staging.

• The interlocking tower will be "saved" - dismantled and placed into Park District storage for reassembly at a future park. I don't know how you dismantle a masonry structure without it all falling apart, and the city has put things away before never to see the light of day - the reliefs from the Ogden bridge come to mind.
  
• There will indeed be a big wall along Lake St. Supposedly Amtrak is insisting on high clearances for all new structures, but they can't do anything about the existing bridges and buildings (like the Lake St viaduct) that have low clearance. The Hines guy said something about electrification of the rail line but it sounded like speculation.
  
• The access to the park is as labyrinthine and convoluted as possible, so nobody will ever find it convenient to cut through. Access to the riverwalk level only happens at Lake (via the existing bridge house stair) or via Riverbend's existing riverwalk.
  
• Ventilation systems are being integrated into the deck structure to vent diesel fumes towards the riverwalk.

I encourage everyone to email Alderman Reilly and demand a northern access point to the Riverwalk. With such a stairway, the plaza could act as a defacto pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks and mitigate the dangers created at the grade crossing as pedestrian traffic increases, train traffic increases, and sight lines are cut off by the new deck.

[Chicago_Forever]

Sucks!!! But thanks for the info. Anyone asked why the boathouse was no longer in the plans?

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Wow, ardecila, you pretty much answered every question I had. Thank you so much for attending, and for your thorough notes.

It's really unfortunate about the "park." Amtrak's demand seems unusual to me, but, if it is indeed true, and there's really nothing that can be done about it, I guess the developers' hands are tied.

Aside from a northern access point, is there, in your opinion, anything you think the architects and developers could do to improve the "park's" design (accessibility, etc.)?

[ardecila]

I'm pretty satisfied overall with the look of the project. I think it's functionally flawed in all the ways I mentioned, but the architects have done a fairly good job within the constraints they have. Based on the appearance of the model, I have a strong hunch that we will get basically a curvilinear version of 333 N LaSalle, possibly even using the same blocky yellow limestone for retaining walls and a similar glass curtain wall.

Obviously the plaza at River Point is much larger, so it has a more elaborate landscape design than the hardscape at 333 (Reilly commented that the original design for River Point was hardscape). In fact, I vote we stop calling it a plaza - with its narrow, curving paths, it seems more like a garden or park.

I don't think the design is advanced enough to start talking about planting palettes, but I hope they go for grasses and native species. Unfortunately the formal layout of the plaza suggests a really conventional palette - for some reason I keep thinking of Rockefeller Center's roof garden.

[Theoryg]

It is truely stunning! but a spacefiller really. It wont make much impact on the skyline but it is slightly acceptable for that sensitive river intersection. I would love something the same but add 20 more stories.

[jarta]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I attended the meeting. Nothing was shown that isn't already on the website, although they had a beautiful model that answered a lot of questions. No photos from me, forgot the camera.

The overall tone was pretty constructive - the neighborhood residents accept the idea of a tower but they had pretty valid concerns about sidewalk capacity, access, the Canal grade crossing, and the construction staging.

- The interlocking tower will be "saved" - dismantled and placed into Park District storage for reassembly at a future park. I don't know how you dismantle a masonry structure without it all falling apart, and the city has put things away before never to see the light of day.

- There will indeed be a big wall along Lake St. Supposedly Amtrak is insisting on high clearances for all new structures, but they can't do anything about the existing bridges and buildings (like the Lake St viaduct) that have low clearance. The Hines guy said something about electrification of the rail line but it sounded like speculation.

- The access to the park is as labyrinthine and convoluted as possible, so nobody will ever find it convenient to cut through. Access to the riverwalk level only happens at Lake (via the existing bridge house stair) or via Riverbend's existing riverwalk.

- Ventilation systems are being integrated into the deck structure to vent diesel fumes towards the riverwalk.

I encourage everyone to email Alderman Reilly and demand a northern access point to the Riverwalk. With such a stairway, the plaza could act as a defacto pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks and mitigate the dangers created at the grade crossing as pedestrian traffic increases, train traffic increases, and sight lines are cut off by the new deck.

I also went to the meeting. A 2nd entrance from the northern area of the plaza down to the Riverwalk would be nice. The plaza will be encumbered with a recorded City easement to protect the 1.5 acre plaza area for public use.

I hope the train fumes are blown out higher than any pedestrians on the Riverwalk. I hope better warning of trains pulling out of the station will be given. Now the pedestrian view back where the tunnel will be is currently unobstructed.

Once you get north of the building on Canal street another 20' wall visually seals the plaza from the street. Infrastructure reworking along Canal and Lake just has to take place or Lake and Canal will become much more congested than it already is. Lake St. already gets lots of overflow traffic from those who no longer use Kinzie. (I heard at the meeting that a newly commissioned traffic study will show that the traffic counts in the developer's Wolf Point traffic study are low by about 100% at key intersections. That wouldn't surprise anyone who lives near Wolf Point!)

Unlike the proposed Wolf Point, River Point seemed fairly acceptable to its neighbors.