CHICAGO | Post Office Redevelopment

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Let's not overestimate how much of the Mart is tech—or office space of any kind. Without CoStar access, I'll guesstimate somewhere around 250,000 square feet is any kind of office space.

The old post office is 10 times that.

Your estimate on office space is almost certainly completely wrong - I don't think think you're even in the ballpark.

I worked for a company there which had an entire lower floor. If there are 18 floors, not counting the tower, that's about 200,000 square feet per floor. And that was one firm - a tech firm - and that was 10 years ago. The amount of tech in the Mart has only grown since then. 1871 alone takes up 115,000 square feet, too. That's eclipsing your 250,000 number with just *2* firms - CCCIS and 1871. And then thre's GoHealth and Moto Mobility Yelp and others. And isn't ConAgra locating there? That's not a tech firm, but it is a 200,000 square foot office lease. It's easy to forget that the Mart has 4 million square feet just in the original building and over 2 million more in the Apparel Mart. I'm sure that office uses presently account for over a million square feet of space, perhaps more, and that a decent chunk of that is tech firms.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by emathias

Your estimate on office space is almost certainly completely wrong - I don't think think you're even in the ballpark.

I worked for a company there which had an entire lower floor. If there are 18 floors, not counting the tower, that's about 200,000 square feet per floor. And that was one firm - a tech firm - and that was 10 years ago. The amount of tech in the Mart has only grown since then. 1871 alone takes up 115,000 square feet, too. That's eclipsing your 250,000 number with just *2* firms - CCCIS and 1871. And then thre's GoHealth and Moto Mobility Yelp and others. And isn't ConAgra locating there? That's not a tech firm, but it is a 200,000 square foot office lease. It's easy to forget that the Mart has 4 million square feet just in the original building and over 2 million more in the Apparel Mart. I'm sure that office uses presently account for over a million square feet of space, perhaps more, and that a decent chunk of that is tech firms.

ConArga leased 170,000 square feet. Office leases in the low 1M range sound about right but I haven't bothered to add them all up. From the investments Vornado is making in the common area amenities their target market is clearly more office tenants of the HQ and tech varieties.

[MultiModal]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Let's not overestimate how much of the Mart is tech—or office space of any kind. Without CoStar access, I'll guesstimate somewhere around 250,000 square feet is any kind of office space.

The old post office is 10 times that.

You are way off. It is somewhere near 3.7 Million is office and if I were to guess around 2M SF is Tech.

1871 has 41,000 RSF
ConAgra has 168,000 RSF
Brain Tree has 58,000 RSF
Yelp has 60,000 RSF
GoHealth has 90,000 RSF
CTU has 48,000 RSF

Motorola Mobilty has 604,000 RSF (200,000 SF of that they have up for sublease in which VelocityEHS takes 91,000 RSF)

Plus Discovery Chicago, MSL Group and Razorfish all have large leases too.

Those are just to name a few and the building has an additional 243,864 SF available for lease

[emathias]

Originally Posted by MultiModal

You are way off. It is somewhere near 3.7 Million is office and if I were to guess around 2M SF is Tech.

1871 has 41,000 RSF
...
Yelp has 60,000 RSF
...

I think those two actually have over double those numbers.

[JK47]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

I don't think the timing is right for McDonald's. My money would be them moving into Sears sometime in 2017 with an announcement within the next 3 months. Walgreens is a potential for the Post Office though.

From what I've heard in my company there aren't any large blocks of floorspace available in Sears (we were looking since my company is doubling our workforce in the Tower).

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by emathias

the amount of tech in the Mart has only grown since then. 1871 alone takes up 115,000 square feet, too. That's eclipsing your 250,000 number with just *2* firms - CCCIS and 1871. And then thre's GoHealth and Moto Mobility Yelp and others. And isn't ConAgra locating there? That's not a tech firm, but it is a 200,000 square foot office lease.

+razorfish, saatchi + saatchi, braintree

[nomarandlee]

Speculation time....I wonder what gym brand they have in mind or even locked up. From the sound of it it seems like a major component of the plan. I would love for it to be East Bank Club. I've read that the upkeep on their River North property is very expensive and I'm sure they could sell that lot for an ungodly price that could hold a number of condo/apartment towers once the building was scrapped. Or maybe Lifetime Fitness would decide its a perfect location to finally go urban.

- Also I wonder what is in mind for the south east lot where the annex building is. It would have near perfect north views of the South Branch. It would provide a great bookend similar to River Point, Wolf Point, and Trump. Maybe they will not invest too heavily into the landscaping if there is any idea for a highrise (or supertall) in mind for the lot.

[JK47]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...517-story.html


The saga continues. Apparently Davies was dead for five days before the deal closed and his death was reported about 24 hours prior to the closing.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by nomarandlee

Speculation time....I wonder what gym brand they have in mind or even locked up. From the sound of it it seems like a major component of the plan. I would love for it to be East Bank Club. I've read that the upkeep on their River North property is very expensive and I'm sure they could sell that lot for an ungodly price that could hold a number of condo/apartment towers once the building was scrapped. Or maybe Lifetime Fitness would decide its a perfect location to finally go urban.

If 601W is following the template set by 600 W Chicago, it could be another David Barton Gym.

I think East Bank Club is unlikely, as it was/is founded by the owner of Habitat partly to boost the value of their land holdings in western River North. If they moved the club, it would have a negative impact on Habitat's rental properties.

Also I wonder what is in mind for the south east lot where the annex building is. It would have near perfect north views of the South Branch. It would provide a great bookend similar to River Point, Wolf Point, and Trump. Maybe they will not invest too heavily into the landscaping if there is any idea for a highrise (or supertall) in mind for the lot.

Right now, it just shows a plaza. It's a bad site for office due to access challenges, you can't get into the site except from the south but the Metra and CTA stations are to the north and east. I suppose you could solve this with some kind of second floor concourse in the Post Office like the Mart has, or you could build a pedestrian bridge over Congress.

[streetline]

Originally Posted by ardecila

If 601W is following the template set by 600 W Chicago, it could be another David Barton Gym.

I think East Bank Club is unlikely, as it was/is founded by the owner of Habitat partly to boost the value of their land holdings in western River North. If they moved the club, it would have a negative impact on Habitat's rental properties.



Right now, it just shows a plaza. It's a bad site for office due to access challenges, you can't get into the site except from the south but the Metra and CTA stations are to the north and east. I suppose you could solve this with some kind of second floor concourse in the Post Office like the Mart has, or you could build a pedestrian bridge over Congress.

From their rendering, it looks like there will be a path under Congress by the river's edge. Some sort of split street/river level lobby would make that a nice way to walk to work from the metra stations.

I think it would be great to see something developed there eventually (maybe a business cycle or two down the road), and would not want to see anything done that ruled that out. But on the other hand, I think the Old Post Office itself should be the current focus, and I'm pretty happy with what they've shown so far in their renderings. There's not much point distracting from the business at hand with talk of a tower that might or might not happen a decade or more from now.


One thing that occurs to me is that when the Post Office and Riverline are done, we'll have a river side pedestrian path all the way from Roosevelt up past the confluence. Assuming River City is integrated into Riverline's riverwalk, the only gap will be the block north of the Post Office next to 300 N Riverside. It would behoove 300 N Riverside's owners, the city, and that block's neighbors on the river plaza to work together to make sure that final gap is bridged.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by JK47

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...517-story.html


The saga continues. Apparently Davies was dead for five days before the deal closed and his death was reported about 24 hours prior to the closing.

I doubt his heirs would want to give back $130 million in order to get back a derelict asbestos-filled building. But if for some reason they did, it could become an issue.

[Via Chicago]

this whole thing is just bizaree

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by JK47

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...517-story.html


The saga continues. Apparently Davies was dead for five days before the deal closed and his death was reported about 24 hours prior to the closing.

I know there would be legal/transfer hiccups regarding the time of his death.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by nomarandlee

I know there would be legal/transfer hiccups regarding the time of his death.

If it was a simple power of attorney and the family decides to not support the sale there could be issues as both US and British law ends power of attorney at death. Generally speaking if someone acting under power of attorney has not yet been notified of the death, then their actions are still valid, however I suspect that provision mostly protects them individually from accusations of misconduct and doesn't completely protect the result of any deals they've signed against being contested by the heirs.

If "power of attorney" was shorthand for what was actually something set up in trust form then it may not matter. Some trusts survive death. There's probably not enough public details about exactly how everything was structured for anyone to make a truly educated guess as to how this will play out but I suspect we'll find out within a month or so whether there will be any disputes.

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...20-column.html

New plan for old post office has better chance of delivering than past flops

May 20, 2016

Blair KaminContact Reporter
Cityscapes

After years of cockamamie plans for reviving the moribund hulk of the old Chicago post office, a sound proposal finally has emerged to revive the building. Yet nothing is ever easy at this star-crossed site, which forms a western gateway to downtown.

As the Tribune's Kim Janssen has reported, the former owner of the old post office, the eccentric British multimillionaire Bill Davies, died five days before the riverfront building was sold to New York-based 601W Cos. Hmm.

Could Davies' heirs slow or block 601W's planned $500 million redevelopment by contesting the sale in court? Probably not. Davies bought the parcel for $24 million and it sold for $130 million. There appears to be no financial incentive for the heirs to get in the way.

Absent such a spat, the new post office plan, which calls for transforming the building into office space, could deliver something other than eyesores and pipe dreams. Davies specialized in the latter.

[pilsenarch]

^whatever, Kamin is still and always will be a tool... idiot! Sad.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by bcp

Whatever that is top left.... Total, total garbage...clearly designed to appease some fringe group giving input...still, great to see this happen and push development this direction

The plazas depicted there are likely little more than placeholders quickly thrown together for the news release. That is my hope at least...

[ChickeNES]

The ChicagoDPD twitter account shared a couple more pictures from 601W:

[Jim in Chicago]

Originally Posted by ChickeNES

The ChicagoDPD twitter account shared a couple more pictures from 601W:

This space is just crying out to be a hotel lobby. Was turning the north tower into a boutique hotel ever part of a discussion?

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by ChickeNES

The ChicagoDPD twitter account shared a couple more pictures from 601W:

Looks like the East Bank Club. Actually this won't ever happen but it would be amazing if the East Bank Club moved to the Old Main Post Office and its land was redeveloped.