CHICAGO | The Ritz-Carlton Residences | 495 FT / 151 M | 40 FLOORS | COM

[the urban politician]

The facade is better than that of Elysian, at least.

This facade at least has some ornamentation. Elysian should have had some.

[jcchii]

it's flying up now. maybe 3/4 of height?

[ametz]

Originally Posted by tommaso

Look buddy. They're building crap and they're gonna make a killing on their investment and that's all they care about. Do you think this developer really cares that his building is fake or cheap or a false representation of a legitimate classic style. No way! All these guys care about is their bottom line and that's what they'll tell you coming out of the board room. Math is very simple and architecture doesn't always enter the conversation of math, balance sheets, budgets, and profits.

It's a damned world we live in and we no longer live in 1880 or 1920. So, if they are building crap in our cities, there's a calculated reason for that. It's the most profitable way the investors have come up with of making their profit, a return on their investment. Rare is it in this day and age that you can get a developer to build a masterpiece, an architectural marvel. That can take hoards of money and an enormous amount of refined and good taste.

Well, and given that we're humans and we can't agree on what good taste is, you'll never really get enough like-minded people to agree on what a beautiful structure looks like. But, if you ask most people, they will tell you Haussmanian architecture in Paris, Beaux-Arts buildings in New York and the John Hancock building in Chicago are beautiful All I know is history repeats itself and we are due for a true renaissance God willing

...And on that note...

For anyone here who's in the real estate industry in whatever capacity, is there room for a developer or an architect to upsell a client on high quality design (yeah, i know it's subjective), the idea being that their property will ultimately be more desireable and therefore more profitable in the long run? Or is that just naive?

[Nowhereman1280]

^^^ There is always room for that, the problem is not everyone recognizes that. Not everyone is a visionary like Herb Greenwald. But some people spend years building schlock and then suddenly "get it" like Lowenburg who is suddenly extremely interested in good design ever since he stumbled across Jeanne Gang and made bank by taking a more progressive, risky approach to one of his towers...

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by ametz

...And on that note...

For anyone here who's in the real estate industry in whatever capacity, is there room for a developer or an architect to upsell a client on high quality design (yeah, i know it's subjective), the idea being that their property will ultimately be more desireable and therefore more profitable in the long run? Or is that just naive?

Yes it's possible...incrementally. But an entire exterior? Should have been able to sell traditional high end facade from the get-go or not go that route at all. We know the architect is a traditionalist, but I doubt a limestone facade was proposed, then VE-ed out. The previous experience of all the other projects leads me to believe he had been planning to specify a precast clad exterior all along.

[harryc]

[J_M_Tungsten]

Today on the Ohio off ramp

Are they topped out now?

[Nowhereman1280]

Has anyone else noticed this building has what looks to be a pretty interesting cantilever over the roof of the Farwell portion on the south side?



urbanturf.com

Its too bad this design sucks or the cantilever could have been an interesting element of a striking design...

[george]

3-16

[Rizzo]

Looks like 4 or 5 more regular floors to go before they hit mechanical/penthouse/mansard, whatever.

[J_M_Tungsten]

I never really cared for Omni, now I wish it wasn't blocked by this "thing."

[george]

I'd say the Ritz and the Omni deserve each other. The crown of the Ritz is tacky.
I am looking forward to the return of the old "Landmark Farwell Building" limestone panels.

[J_M_Tungsten]

http://www.theresidenceschicago.com/

There is 3 dimensional tour of sorts at this website.

[Nowhereman1280]

The Omni has always been one of my architectural guilty pleasures. I know I should hate it so much for being nasty pomo, but I still like it. I think its because its "pomo done right" with quality materials and a ridiculous overblown characature of traditional styles.

[aic4ever]

Originally Posted by ametz

...And on that note...

For anyone here who's in the real estate industry in whatever capacity, is there room for a developer or an architect to upsell a client on high quality design (yeah, i know it's subjective), the idea being that their property will ultimately be more desireable and therefore more profitable in the long run? Or is that just naive?

They don't look at their returns on a long-term enough perspective for it. Unless you get a client looking to make a statement, which in developer-speak means the client is putting their own money on the line to "upgrade" to a higher level of design, you're getting cheap developer-schlock because it's the highest impact to their own immediate bottom line.

On a smaller scale, for instance, a developer will budget for say, a million dollar core & shell building. This might be four block walls with face brick, a roof, and whatever glass is required by code. If the tenant wants to have an interesting storefront, an allowance is created in the lease and the tenant has to kick in its own money. Maybe they split the difference in cost as part of the negotiations.

If the tenant wants to make a statement at a location, and alter the building, the developer says, "Here's my million dollar box, how different do you want it?"

The tenant comes in with their own design concept, and that gets budgeted accordingly, let's say to $1.6 million. Then everyone freaks out and says it's way too much and it gets VE'd and the cost differences get negotiated, and somewhere there's a middling design that's way better than the original nothing box, but not as good as what could have been, and it's like $1.3 million. The developer and the tenant figure out some way to divvy up that $300K so that either the tenant kicks it all in up front, or so that the developer will recoup the "extra" $300K he spent up front within a short period in the lease rates.

Generally, the developer always wants his profit as high as possible, and as fast as possible. Few of them could seem to care less about how things actually look at the end of the day.

[harryc]

March 2







View from NMH

March 15

From Wabash






Mich ave.




Embed plates in action

[george]

^Nice shots, harry. Thanks for the glimpses and details.^

[seadragon]

Hello harryc

Thank you for the new photos.

This one you took is interesting as it captures some very UGLY weldings.


Embed plates in action


Close up of welds captured by harryc, with comments added.

Hence, curious about the finite element analysis (FEA) modeling that was performed on this steel structure. In particular, the location, number and size of weld points that were called out and specified in the FEA model and how that model changes, if any, with the welds being how they are in harryc's photograph.

[denizen467]

Eyeballing those photos, probably T/O by Memorial Day or so.

[george]

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