CHICAGO | Highrise Projects & Construction, v7

[IrishIllini]

Retail may become more experience-oriented. It's not going to flat-out die though. Someone will be interested in prime spaces. The suburban mega-mall is on its way out though.

Wells has potential from Chicago Ave. through the Loop. North of Chicago, there are too many institutional land uses. I don't see Moody or Payton going anywhere anytime soon.

Orleans would make a decent retail strip up through Division. It'd either fall of there, tie into infill development along Clybourn (Jewel, Mariano's, North/Clybourn area), or tie into the district on Wells.

[Gonzo the Great]

Sorry if this is a bit narrow minded . To all the Cubs fans I envy and admire , I just heard one of the cities iconic
towers is about to loose it's name . The John Hancock Tower was requested to remove it's name from this fantastic
addition to your skyline . One suggestion is to use its address until some other name can be selected .

No matter what name is used in the future , nothing can defer its magnificence and I sincerely hope it remains a star
for the city and its skyline for as long as there is a Chicago ..... Still second city for me .

OMG , I have to apologize . I don't visit that often and didn't realize this is ancient news ...... The beheading will take place shortly .

[emathias]

Originally Posted by KWillChicago

If that Milwaukee one is still on the table i'll take it. I love how that area is staying unique to each building. Not just cookie cutter blue glass all along there.

I'm pretty sure that is still on the table. A year ago they were still talking about it in the present tense in an article talking with the developer, who I believe had an option on the property.

On the other hand, the original plan was for Carsons to re-occupy in the ground floor once the tower was complete, so it's possible that another developer swooped in and bought the land, or just that Carsons didn't want to be without a downtown location for over a year. Since Carson's is closing on Monday, I expect we'll hear more fairly soon.

This article is 20 months or so old, about that Blanc proposal:
https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/12/8...-wells-ontario

The Blanc's website is still live:
http://www.theblancchicago.com/

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by emathias

I'm pretty sure that is still on the table. A year ago they were still talking about it in the present tense in an article talking with the developer, who I believe had an option on the property.

On the other hand, the original plan was for Carsons to re-occupy in the ground floor once the tower was complete, so it's possible that another developer swooped in and bought the land, or just that Carsons didn't want to be without a downtown location for over a year. Since Carson's is closing on Monday, I expect we'll hear more fairly soon.

This article is 20 months or so old, about that Blanc proposal:
https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/12/8...-wells-ontario

The Blanc's website is still live:
http://www.theblancchicago.com/

Well I hope this development is dead, because it's dreadful. For 31 condos you get 128 parking spaces, of which 84 are for "retail".

Now I don't know how things are in his hometown of Milwaukee, but in River North you don't need "retail parking" of that magnitude, if at all, unless we are talking a major destination retailer.

I mean, it's still like 1985 for some people. Literally, some people actually think that a retail space in downtown Chicago needs equally as much parking as a strip mall in Schaumburg. It's ludicrous! And zoning will probably wait until the year 2075 (when car ownership is at 4% and robots drive us everywhere) to finally say "duh.... I think we might not need all this parking, lets implement some parking maximums".

This project is crap. Throw it in the toilet, flush it, and start over.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Near North Resident

retail is dying
if anything there will be a pricey restaurant on the 1st floor

Nope, it certainly isn't, for Christ sake.
People want more and more of it at their 1st floors.

Malls are dying. We have a large distribution corporation here comparable to Walmart, that's called Carrefour that made the terrible mistake to bet on malls... Very bad, strategically awkward. Carrefour was 2nd to Walmart worldwide in their sector in 2001. They dropped to the 9th place in the ranking today, laying off people.

Their younger CEO is dramatically changing their strategy. Mostly about online shopping and urban 1st floor grocery stores, because people actually want both.
Suburban malls are losing here.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Well I hope this development is dead, because it's dreadful. For 31 condos you get 128 parking spaces, of which 84 are for "retail".

Now I don't know how things are in that asshole's hometown of Milwaukee, but in River North you don't need "retail parking" of that magnitude, if at all, unless we are talking a major destination retailer.

I mean, it's bizarre. It's still like 1985 for some people. Literally, some people actually think that a retail space in downtown Chicago needs equally as much parking as a strip mall in Schaumburg. It's ludicrous! And the criminal fuckfaces in zoning will probably wait until the year 2075 (when car ownership is at 4% and robots drive us everywhere) to finally say "duh.... I think we might not need all this parking, lets implement some parking maximums".

This project is crap. Throw it in the toilet, flush it, and start over.

I agree about parking. I think the large number of spaces was for two reasons:

1) the condos are supposed to be larger than average and high end, meaning most of the owners will probably want parking and

2) when Carsons was planning to stay in the building, they probably wanted at least as many spaces as they currently have, and maybe a few more. Since Carsons isn't staying, that argument goes away so even if it's basically the same maybe they'll shave off some parking spaces or come up with a whole new concept.

[10023]

Originally Posted by emathias

1) the condos are supposed to be larger than average and high end, meaning most of the owners will probably want parking and

This is faulty logic.

[10023]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Nope, it certainly isn't, for Christ sake.
People want more and more of it at their 1st floors.

Malls are dying. We have a large distribution corporation here comparable to Walmart, that's called Carrefour that made the terrible mistake to bet on malls... Very bad, strategically awkward. Carrefour was 2nd to Walmart worldwide in their sector in 2001. They dropped to the 9th place in the ranking today, laying off people.

Their younger CEO is dramatically changing their strategy. Mostly about online shopping and urban 1st floor grocery stores, because people actually want both.
Suburban malls are losing here.

Retail is changing in ways that will require much less floor space overall.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by 10023

This is faulty logic.

No it's not. You want them to park their Bentleys and Maserati's where??

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

No it's not. You want them to park their Bentleys and Maserati's where??

My issue isn’t with the condo parking, it’s with the retail parking. I don’t care if it was for Carson’s, they still don’t need nearly that much parking.

This is the kind of stupid crap that happens when a developer comes from another midwestern city. Other midwestern cities are way more car dependent, and they bring their worthless car culture over here.

If they aren’t going to study this market then it should be up to zoning and the Planning Dept to do it for them. There needs to be parking caps so that some dillweed from Ohio can’t come here and build the same complex here that they did back in Toledo, never mind the fact that you’ve got subway lines, taxicabs, car-share, bike share and bus service out the door, and more apartments and hotels in a single square mile than pretty much their entire home city.

In other words, Chicago needs to stop acting like it doesn’t have these assets.

[Freefall]

I'm okay with that much parking if the retail component is a grocery store.

Seriously though, that location would fill a Mariano's hole really nicely.

[10023]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

No it's not. You want them to park their Bentleys and Maserati's where??

There is no building in Chicago where the average owner has Bentleys and Maseratis (plural).

It turns out to be inaccurate anyway, since most of that parking wasn’t for residents anyway.

But as a matter of principle, there are plenty of $3-4 million condos in NYC with no parking at all. Wealthier people have nicer cars, but in the city they don’t need more cars than the middle class. One is just a much more expensive car.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by 10023

There is no building in Chicago where the average owner has Bentleys and Maseratis (plural).

It turns out to be inaccurate anyway, since most of that parking wasn’t for residents anyway.

But as a matter of principle, there are plenty of $3-4 million condos in NYC with no parking at all. Wealthier people have nicer cars, but in the city they don’t need more cars than the middle class. One is just a much more expensive car.

Ok, but they like to buy extra parking for them. We also have a good amount of car collectors downtown most of you don't know about that many landlords like to cater to. Trump tower for example has a large area for special cars. They are hardly driven but why shouldn't they have them??

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

Ok, but they like to buy extra parking for them. We also have a good amount of car collectors downtown most of you don't know about that many landlords like to cater to. Trump tower for example has a large area for special cars. They are hardly driven but why shouldn't they have them??

Kind of a silly argument.

Downtown Chicago is not the place to keep your private car collection

[Stunnies23]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Kind of a silly argument.

Downtown Chicago is not the place to keep your private car collection

It’s not like they’re driving them more than once a month. I’m all for building storage parking if some millionaire wants to pay for it. They’ll pay property taxes on each $40k spot. It’s not like the city is flush with cash. That said, I’d prefer the additional parking be built underground or wrapped in active uses so that no garage part is seen.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Downtown Chicago is not the place to keep your private car collection

You now get to decide what people can and can't collect and store on their own private property?

[F1 Tommy]

The one thing I do not like are blank walls on the lower levels of skyscrapers due to parking. They need to make them more attractive and friendly. As for collector cars, paintings, sculptures ect. people should be allowed to have them downtown. The even have a Bentley dealer downtown

[IrishIllini]

Aren't most of the parking garages/podiums underused? I remember hearing that a lot of garages aren't hitting capacity because there are fewer tenants with cars. Chicago hasn't quite reached the point where developers are confident units will be attractive to buyers if parking is not included. If true, the fact that many garages are nowhere near capacity may change that. It is a waste to build massive podiums if fewer and fewer tenants are using them. They're also not typically the most attractive things to look at, although some podiums have been well designed.

[Notyrview]

I don't really care if a rich person wants to hoard cars (i sort of get it bc i hoard guitars, tho I actually play them). However, when we're talking about hundreds of parking spaces for shoppers, that's a different story. Sure, it's private property, but all rights are relative, and property rights must be balanced against the rights of people who live in the neighborhood to be free from air/noise pollution and pedestrian chaos. As people have pointed out there are plenty of reasonable alternatives to driving to Whole Foods. Other alternatives include food delivery services and cooking meal kits which are becoming more and more popular, tho admittedly for wealthier people.

[Stunnies23]

From the chicago DPD twitter page “Plan Commission approves a two-building project from @SterlingBay in the #WestLoop. The plan includes a 20-story office building with first-floor retail at 330 N. Green St. and a 19-story office building with first-floor retail at 333 N. Green St. ”
“The developer will pay $11.4 million into the Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus system, 10 percent of which will be earmarked for the new #WestLoop library. The $260 million project will create 780 construction jobs and support up to 5,800 permanent jobs.”
“Additionally, to make the required changes in zoning, the developer will pay $1.33 million to the Industrial Corridor System Fund”