CHICAGO | St. Regis Chicago (Vista) | 1,191 FT | 101 FLOORS

[10023]

^ Yeah that’s probably the one. But there might have also been a very old master plan rendering (in watercolors or something) that showed a road going through a building in this spot too.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah that’s probably the one. But there might have also been a very old master plan rendering (in watercolors or something) that showed a road going through a building in this spot too.

Yes, it's very old master plan, but there's no new master plan at this time.

[kolchak]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah that’s probably the one. But there might have also been a very old master plan rendering (in watercolors or something) that showed a road going through a building in this spot too.

Yes. They are building a road running under the tower -



loopnorth.com

LOOP NORTH NEWS

Chicago’s third-tallest building will improve access to Riverwalk from Lakeshore East
Ground broken at Vista Tower, just 95 stories to go

By Steven Dahlman

8-Sep-16 – Though views will decidedly change for many residents of the Lakeshore East neighborhood in the northeast corner of the Loop, the 95-story, $950 million Vista Tower going up in their front yard over the next four years will improve access to and from the Chicago Riverwalk and Navy Pier.

At a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, held near a sales center above and to the south of the construction site, 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly said the project will come with “much needed and long-waited-for” infrastructure improvements to help traffic circulate more efficiently.

Vista Tower will connect the street around Lakeshore East Park with Wacker Drive, with traffic and pedestrians flowing through the base of the tower.

“If you’ve ever been through the Lakeshore East community, trying to find Navy Pier, well, you find yourself in a dead end,” said Reilly. “Now we’ll actually have true circulation through the Lakeshore East community, literally under [Vista] Tower, down Wacker Drive, and I think that’s going to be a great benefit for people who live and work in downtown Chicago.”

[harryc]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah that’s probably the one. But there might have also been a very old master plan rendering (in watercolors or something) that showed a road going through a building in this spot too.

A road runs through it .

[10023]

^ That looks like a much lower ceiling than above. Hopefully they do a lot to make it inviting and safe, rather than like the lower levels of streets in the Loop.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ That looks like a much lower ceiling than above. Hopefully they do a lot to make it inviting and safe, rather than like the lower levels of streets in the Loop.

This is park level, not the upper street level. The park level has relatively low ceilings because there's multiple levels of parking sandwiched between the street level and park level:


Neweastside.org

They are doing a lot to make it an attractive portal from the Riverwalk to LSE park though:


Cubed Chicago

[Mister Uptempo]

Originally Posted by 10023

^ Yeah that’s probably the one. But there might have also been a very old master plan rendering (in watercolors or something) that showed a road going through a building in this spot too.

This is the only other image that comes to mind. From Skidmore's master plan for Lakeshore East. Forgive the low quality.



img src - som.com

[10023]

^ Yep, that’s the one.

[Domer2019]

Vista from the Lake:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/com...from_the_lake/

[HiRiser]

People, I revisit this page to hopefully see if the elephant in the room has been addressed. It hasn’t. Where is the curtainwall?

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by HiRiser

People, I revisit this page to hopefully see if the elephant in the room has been addressed. It hasn’t. Where is the curtainwall?

They are probably working out some kinks, but they have been making steady progress capping the floorplates, if you look at the most recent pictures you will see at least 10-15 floors have been capped. I have a feeling that what we are really seeing is a staging lag where they want to let the time consuming process of building what is essentially hundreds of tiny little roofs where each floorplate moves outwards get well ahead of the main panes being placed.

Also, just look at OGP where they also waited to start installing the window wall until the building was almost halfway up. I don't think it is at all uncommon for larger buildings to start the glass later in the project because once they start installing it, it usually catches up with the concrete work very quickly. They can even do what they did at OGP and start one crew at the base and another crew halfway up. You almost wonder if that's not more efficient in some way to get the window contractor in there all at once and let them bang in out in a couple of months, catching quickly up to the superstructure, than it is to have them there for a year or more creeping along behind crews that work at a much slower pace. I know this is true for most subs on my much smaller projects, they would rather the project be ready for them to just show up and bang it out as quickly as they can than to have to wait for other trades and come back to finish in increments.

[Bombardier]

^That is not correct for either OGP or Vista in terms of glass. Other small finish trades maybe, but not having the glass follow behind the structure is a major cycle and sequencing screw up on both projects. On OGP, I understand it was due to a facade consultant moving the bar multiple times which ultimately requires the replacement of the facade contractor. If you recall, OGP actually had very expensive temporary walls installed to keep the construction moving. The delay in getting the glass on the building will now compress all other trade work as they could not finish in sequence while they were waiting for the glass to be fabricated.

At Vista, the glass contractor has still not passed crucial performance mockups. Even the small bit of glass that was installed at the shear walls has stopped progressing. This is not intentional and indicates a major blunder somewhere along the line in either design or misrepresentation of the performance the glass system could achieve. Even working multiple crews when the performance issue is ultimately resolved, I don’t see them making up the amount of time lost due to these issues. It will be interesting to see how it plays out and how much of a delay in final turnover the lack of glass will cause the project.

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ Are you sure about that or are you speculating. Because the glass install along the floorplate edges has continued pretty much unabated since they started. Perhaps there is a delay in the main panes, but it would seem odd that only the main panes are failing and the rest of the system (i.e. the floorplate caps) has passed just fine and is progressing.

Also, I wouldn't call those temporary walls at OGP "very expensive", it's less than $20/sheet for that fiberglass board and metal studs are dirt cheap, that wall maybe cost them $20 a linear foot to put up, sure that might add up to tens or twenty thousand dollars over several floors, but that's hardly what one would call "very expensive" on a multi hundred million dollar project. I'd be very curious to find out exactly what happened there. Also it's total bunk to claim the curtain wall will "compress all other trade work" because literally none of the trades would be impacted until you get to finishing type work like drywall which ain't gonna happen until many months after the concrete on any given floor is poured. In what world is the plumber, carpenter, or electrician slowed down because the windows aren't in? The main problem is going to be for the carpenter where any walls meet the windowwall, which is an issue, but not a huge issue as they have to come back through after all the other trades anyhow to tighten up and replace any studs that get mangled by HVAC, Plumbing, or Eletrical runs.

[pilsenarch]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

^^^ Are you sure about that or are you speculating. Because the glass install along the floorplate edges has continued pretty much unabated since they started. Perhaps there is a delay in the main panes, but it would seem odd that only the main panes are failing and the rest of the system (i.e. the floorplate caps) has passed just fine and is progressing.

You are correct that the spandrel panels are not failing the tests, but the main windows are, repeatedly (!).

For clarification, this is not a curtain wall, but a cheap window system. The same window manufacturer that was used on another Magellan project, Exhibit over on LaSalle...

The glass, and the glass manufacturer is not the problem either.

The problem is with the window frames. The manufacturer of the windows has been forced to design and develop new dies to manufacture a new window system with new extrusions....

Who'd ever thought you would have a problem using a cheap existing window system on a super tall with an uniquely convoluted envelope...

[Bombardier]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Also, I wouldn't call those temporary walls at OGP "very expensive", it's less than $20/sheet for that fiberglass board and metal studs are dirt cheap, that wall maybe cost them $20 a linear foot to put up, sure that might add up to tens or twenty thousand dollars over several floors, but that's hardly what one would call "very expensive" on a multi hundred million dollar project. I'd be very curious to find out exactly what happened there. Also it's total bunk to claim the curtain wall will "compress all other trade work" because literally none of the trades would be impacted until you get to finishing type work like drywall which ain't gonna happen until many months after the concrete on any given floor is poured. In what world is the plumber, carpenter, or electrician slowed down because the windows aren't in? The main problem is going to be for the carpenter where any walls meet the windowwall, which is an issue, but not a huge issue as they have to come back through after all the other trades anyhow to tighten up and replace any studs that get mangled by HVAC, Plumbing, or Eletrical runs.

$20/LF is not even close to install and remove the temporary walls with union labor. I don't disagree that the overall cost is not a huge value is the scheme of the project, but no one wants to throw money out the window for temporary conditions that don't add value.

It is not at all a bunk claim that the other trades have to compress, I've spoken to trades on the project saying the GC is telling them the end date does not change so they have to compress their schedules. Some of the interior trades have walked away because of this. I walked through the building a couple months ago and they built interior partitions leaving out a 10' perimeter for the windows so they could at least get some of the work moving... this is in no way efficient and affects all the other trades.

If you don't understand how the other trades are affected by not having windows in, you have no idea how high rises are built efficiently. The trick to these jobs is to sequence each subsequent trade to follow one another efficiently up the building. Concrete, then windows, top track, risers, skimcoat, framing, rough-in, drywall/doors, prime, tile, flooring, cabinets, shower doors, window shades, etc, etc. If windows are missing, then you can't continue the cycle which will either extend the schedule or compress the subsequent trades hence the reason they tried to temporarily close up the floors to keep interior trades at least getting something done.

[Skyguy_7]

^Nailed it. You must be a contractor. LVDW is an owner. In my experience, the owner never fully understands schedule implications when an early trade is delayed. Sorry LVDW. You're a smart man, but in your rise to Real Estate Conglomerate you've forgotten about how it is to be a contractor under the gun!

[vexxed82]

MKA shared a pretty awesome article to Twitter earlier.

It's a quick article, but a pretty deep dive into the structure's engineering nonetheless.

>> http://www.structuremag.org/?p=13221

[bnk]

Originally Posted by vexxed82

MKA shared a pretty awesome article to Twitter earlier.

It's a quick article, but a pretty deep dive into the structure's engineering nonetheless.

>> http://www.structuremag.org/?p=13221

Informative, good find





Although the buttressed core provides ample strength, additional measures were needed to dampen peak lateral accelerations during the predicted sway of the tower. MKA employed six tuned liquid sloshing damper tanks (TLSD’s) strategically located in the upper stories. Four north-south oriented TLSD’s reside in the top two stories, flanking the elevator overrun and machine rooms. Two east-west oriented tanks are located at the 87th story, stacked and held tight to the core. Taken together, these dampers will contain more than 400,000 gallons (about 1,500 tons) of water.


Tuned liquid sloshing damper tank layout. [in link ]

In a further attempt to optimize the lateral bracing system, a final round of wind tunnel testing was conducted to evaluate multiple concepts representing minor but impactful geometric changes. One concept stood out as a clear winner: an upper-story blow-through level. The 87th story is 28 feet tall and clad with a grill that will appear solid from the ground while allowing wind to pass through the tower at this elevation. The blow-through effect directly relieves a portion of the wind force but also disrupts the flow and amplitude of wind forces for several stories above and below. Along with the switch to porous roof screens, the net effect of the blow-through level is a 24 percent reduction of the cross-wind lateral response.


...

[PittsburghPA]

Originally Posted by pilsenarch

You are correct that the spandrel panels are not failing the tests, but the main windows are, repeatedly (!).

For clarification, this is not a curtain wall, but a cheap window system. The same window manufacturer that was used on another Magellan project, Exhibit over on LaSalle...

The glass, and the glass manufacturer is not the problem either.

The problem is with the window frames. The manufacturer of the windows has been forced to design and develop new dies to manufacture a new window system with new extrusions....

Who'd ever thought you would have a problem using a cheap existing window system on a super tall with an uniquely convoluted envelope...

I have also heard this from a friend in the curtain wall industry. The entire project finish date will most likely be delayed. It is indeed alarming.

On another note, I've always looked at how NYC projects are almost always curtain wall and Chicago projects are almost always window wall. Is that just due to higher profile buildings/more money to be spent? I didn't think it could get much higher profile than Vista. If done right this building can be world class.

[SolarWind]

June 4, 2018