New Calatrava-designed Tower in Chicago to surpass Sears Tower

[Pottebaum]

Carley Aims to Usurp Sears Tower ‘Tallest’ Title
By Mark Ruda
Last updated: July 25, 2005 11:00am

CHICAGO-Christopher T. Carley plans to build a luxury condominium tower that he says would be the tallest skyscraper in the US. Carley’s Fordham Co. has commissioned a design by Santiago Calatrava, whose projects include the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York City and Milwaukee Art Museum expansion.

The design of the lakefront Fordham Spire, as well as details concerning location, cost and financing, will be unveiled Wednesday morning, says a spokesperson for the developer. However, the unveiling is set for the Museum of Contemporary Art at 220 E. Chicago Ave., and Carley’s condominium developments include Fordham Tower, the Pinnacle and 65 E. Goethe, all in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Carley is said to have spent three years working on bringing a Calatrava design to Chicago.

At 110 stories and 1,454 feet, the title of the US’ tallest building belongs to Sears Tower. Would-be developers have pitched plans for record-breaking buildings Downtown. That includes Donald Trump, who ultimately scaled back his condominium and hotel building under construction at 401 N. Wabash Ave. following the destruction of the World Trade Center. Taipei 101 in Taiwan is currently considered the world’s tallest building.

--------------------

Oh....my.....God!

[londonlawyer]

That's great news for Chicago. As I have stated, Chicago is pro-development, whereas NY embodies the apogee of anti-development sentiment. Could you imagine the uproar that would ensue if this project were proposed here. People would be up-in-arms because the views would be blocked from their rent controlled apartments for which they pay 15% of market value!

[Jasonik]

Calatrava!

[lofter1]

C A L A T R A V A ! ! !



C A L A T R A V A ! ! !



C A L A T R A V A ! ! !



C A L A T R A V A ! ! !

[lofter1]

(If only I could have made that twist)

[PHLguy]

Holy geez! that's awesome, Chicago will have what 6 1000 footers soon?



could this be higher than FT?

[Alonzo-ny]

I am on some levels disappointed but because calatrava is designing it im happy about it. Does it mean its going to be bigger than freedom tower or just the sears?

[Pottebaum]

It's roof height will be 1458ft, and 2000 feet with the spire---so yes, if built, it will be taller than the Freedom Tower.

And according to the NYT article, it will have 115 floors!

[pianoman11686]

In Chicago, Plans for a High-Rise Raise Interest and Post-9/11 Security Concerns

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/07/25/national/tower.184.1.583.jpg

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

Published: July 26, 2005

CHICAGO, July 25 - In a city known for its skyscrapers, in an era when tall buildings have become targets, can the skyline handle one more that stretches the limit? In Chicago, it seems, the answer may be yes - if the architect is a "starchitect" like Santiago Calatrava.

Mr. Calatrava, a Spaniard who lives in Zurich, has designed what would be the country's tallest building for Chicago. The developer, Christopher T. Carley, plans to announce the $500 million project on Tuesday.

The structure would be called the Fordham Spire and is proposed to be built at North Water Street and Lake Shore Drive, near where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. It would be 115 stories, topping out at 1,458 feet to its roof. A spire on top would reach about 2,000 feet, making the building the country's tallest.

The Sears Tower, at 1,729 feet, is now the tallest when antennas are included. The Burj Tower in Dubai, under construction, is said to be planned at 2,300 feet, which would make it the world's tallest.

Developers in Chicago have tried in recent years to erect another large skyscraper to add to the Sears Tower, John Hancock Center and Aon Center, 3 of the 15 tallest buildings in the world. A soft commercial real estate market doomed those efforts. But Mr. Carley, a local developer of expensive residential properties, said the Fordham Spire - named after his development firm, the Fordham Company - would be a mixed-use tower with 200 to 250 condominiums atop a 20-story hotel. He said that its unique design, which resembles a drill bit, a blade of grass or a tall, twisting tree, depending on whom you ask, would attract high-end buyers eager to live in a Calatrava structure.

Both developer and architect said they were mindful of security concerns in designing the tower. Mr. Calatrava, in an interview, said he never set out to design the tallest building but instead was drawn to the project by the chance to do something special for the "heroic Chicago skyline."

"Nobody is saying it has to be the highest building in the country," Mr. Calatrava said Monday from Zurich. "The idea was to build a very slender, elegant building in this skyline."

Mr. Calatrava, an engineer by training who has in recent years moved from designing bridges and airports to tall buildings in New York and Malmo, Sweden, said the Chicago structure would be concrete and have two sets of emergency stairways.

In New York, where Mr. Calatrava is the architect of the new transportation hub being built at the former World Trade Center site, the designers of the Freedom Tower acceded to security concerns by the New York Police Department and redesigned the structure this spring, adding a 200-foot reinforced base that will be virtually windowless. The Freedom Tower, if built to its current designed height, would be 1,362 feet to its roof, and 1,776 feet to the top of its antenna.

Mr. Calatrava said he was not concerned the Chicago tower could be seen as a terrorist target. It will be residential, not commercial, he said, and have a slender profile that would be less attractive to potential attackers. "Those things that were done in the Freedom Tower were for very particular reasons," he said. "This is a completely different situation."

Mr. Carley said he was preparing for a tough fight in Chicago to get his tower approved but did not expect its height to be a chief concern - even though he currently has approval only to build two structures of 300 feet and 500 feet. Donald J. Trump had plans for a 150-story building in Chicago but cut it back to 90 stories shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Carley dismissed Mr. Trump's decision as a reaction to the soft commercial market, but Mr. Trump said the reason was security. "Nobody in his right mind would build a building of that height in today's horrible world," he said in a telephone interview on Monday.

"I don't think this is a real project," Mr. Trump said of the Fordham Spire. "It's a total charade."

But so far, Chicago politicians are bubbling over the tower's design, and Mr. Carley and his sales team say that movie stars and at least one former chief executive of a Fortune 500 company are calling to inquire about buying units.

Living in the Calatrava tower would not come cheap, by Chicago standards. Mr. Carley said he expected one-bedroom units to sell initially for at least $600,000, with full-floor units of some 7,200-square-feet topping out at $5 million.

So far, Mr. Carley said, he has lined up loose financing commitments from a company that represents a pension trust and from Corus Bank, which has backed other Fordham projects.

Alderman Burt Natarus, whose ward includes the tower's proposed site, said he was "amazed" when he saw a model of Mr. Calatrava's design. "It's like a needlepoint," Mr. Natarus said. "We have to sit down and we'll have to talk about security, that's all."

A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said he had not heard of the project, and Monique Bond, the spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which handles Homeland Security concerns here, said she had not heard of it, either.

Mr. Calatrava initially passed on at least two sites before Mr. Carley's son Brian, a vice president with Fordham, proposed buying 2.2 acres near Navy Pier, a top tourist attraction. Mr. Calatrava said the location would practically bisect the skyline's two most notable towers, the Sears and Hancock.

The twisting design, which was recently tested in a wind tunnel in Canada, would disperse Chicago's gusting winds, Mr. Carley said. And Mr. Calatrava designed the interior so that posts and columns would be toward the structure's center, to allow balconies on some floors and maximize the floor-to-ceiling views.

Lynn Osmond, president of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, said, "Every city that wants to be a significant city needs to have works of some of the significant architects." Mr. Calatrava, Ms. Osmond said, designs great buildings.

The Carleys were aware of Mr. Calatrava's celebrity but did not shy away from using him, as some developers have. "We are not afraid of the starchitect," Brian Carley said.

Still, while on a trip to visit the architect in Zurich, Brian Carley said, Mr. Calatrava's wife, Robertina, turned to him and said, "You know, Brian, whatever you call the building, it will be still be known as the Calatrava."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/07/25/national/26tower_graphic.gif

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[pianoman11686]

Reminds me a lot of the plans for the South Dearborn Tower. Wouldn't be surprised if it fell through just like that one did. Still, it's impressive that something like this is even being proposed for an American city. Too bad that no one would even consider something this tall for New York.

[PHLguy]

^hello...Freedom Tower? (If either are built)


Other than FT wasn't the con ed supposed to have an 85 floor office tower with 3 80 floor apt? or was that cancelled, other than that, your right, chicago makes NY look like it has no balls.

[stache]

I am under the impression that they are still clearing the Con Ed site.

[PHLguy]

Yea but I'm talking about that specific plan. there will be buildings on there though.

[BVictor1]

Proposed building would be nation’s tallest

July 26, 2005

BY DAVID ROEDER AND KEVIN NANCE Staff Reporters


Chicago's lakefront would get a contender for the title of tallest building in the United States under a developer's plan devised in partnership with Santiago Calatrava, one of the world's foremost architects.

Christopher Carley, chairman of Fordham Co., has shown city officials Calatrava's plan for the Fordham Spire, a hotel/condo tower at 346 E. North Water, where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan and across Lake Shore Drive from Navy Pier.

At 115 stories, the tower would be 1,458 feet to its roof, taller by eight feet than the roof of Sears Tower. But the Calatrava building would include a spire that, depending on structural details, would bring the building to around 2,000 feet.

'Financiers are in awe of this man'

Renderings of the Fordham Spire show a tall, slender, ethereal building whose glass-and-steel surface cascades down a central concrete core. The floor slabs are cantilevered out from the core, with each rotated about two degrees from the one below. As they rise, the floors turn 270 degrees around the core, creating an undulating effect like a gown or cloak.

"I know that Chicago is an Indian name, and I can imagine in the oldest time the Native Americans arriving at the lake and making a fire, with a tiny column of smoke going up in the air," Calatrava said. "With this simple gesture of turning one floor a little past another, you achieve this form."

Carley said the task of lining up money for the possibly $500 million building "has been the easiest in my career'' because of Calatrava, best known in the U.S. for his 2001 addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum and his planned transit hub at New York's Ground Zero. "Financiers are in awe of this man."

So are many architects. "He's a fabulous architect and structural engineer," says Chicago's Adrian Smith, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "I love the sculptural quality of his work, how he relates the shape of his buildings to the structural forces in them. His work is very beautiful -- not often steely or tough, but usually highly refined and soft and sensual. He's one of a kind."

http://images.suntimes.com/popups/spire/images/spire_only.jpg
FORDHAM SPIRE
Location: 346 E. North Water
Height: 1,458 feet to the roof, about 2,000 feet counting spire
Stories: 115
Square footage: 920,000
Projected cost: more than $500 million
Building use: 200-250 condos, 200-250 hotel rooms, retail and parking at the base
Possible construction start: May 2006
Possible completion: 2009
Developer: Fordham Co.
Architect: Santiago Calatrava

Political, financial hurdles

The main questions for the Carley-Calatrava team are whether the structure, planned as a mix of condominiums and hotel units, can be financed and whether it is politically realistic. It falls within the Streeterville neighborhood, a concentration of well-to-do residents increasingly irritable over new high-rises in their midst.

For Carley, meanwhile, the building would be a step up in the development game. After years of putting up multifamily housing around the Midwest, he entered the downtown market in the late 1990s and completed three major condo buildings, a low-rise at 65 E. Goethe and high-rises at 21 E. Huron and 25 E. Superior.

All catered to wealthy buyers. Sales were slower than expected and Carley had to refinance his loans. He said all his lenders have been repaid and that his relationships with them are good.

His company has a contract to buy the 2.2-acre site from affiliates of Chicago-based LR Development Co. LLC.

Carley said his confidence in completing the building "is more than [for] any project I've ever done because the city administration appreciates great architecture.'' He said he courted Calatrava for three years before finding a site suitable for the architect's artistic and engineering gifts.

Will neighbors support plan?

But in the end, the partnership was forged by "personal chemistry,'' Carley said. "I think he was impressed by my dedication to the city and my desire to do something for the city.''

While his plan could stir controversy, it plays into Mayor Daley's pronounced desire to have top-flight architects leave an imprint in Chicago. Also, Carley employs the law firm of Daley & George, whose name partner is mayoral brother Michael Daley. The firm has one of the busiest zoning practices in the city.

Carley said city planners saw the project's details in May and were impressed by the curved, flowing profile of the building. A spokeswoman for the city's Planning Department said the agency would not comment on the design until developers submit a formal zoning plan.

Carley said his plan needs a zoning variance to change the height limitation on the site. And therein lies an argument he'll use against any critics.

Current zoning, he said, lets him put up two buildings on the site in the range of 35 and 50 stories. Going taller and skinnier will minimize blockage of sunlight and views, Carley said.

In addition, he said a Calatrava building will raise property values for the neighbors.

It's not known if the residents will buy that argument. Rosalie Harris, executive director of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, said the group has been shown only a few details of the project and not enough on which to form an opinion.

The group orchestrated a campaign against a proposed 64-story tower near the landmark Fourth Presbyterian Church at Michigan and Delaware, causing the local alderman to come out against it.

[BVictor1]

Height of PR: Altitude brings bragging rights

July 26, 2005

BY KEVIN NANCE ARCHITECTURE CRITIC


The height of the proposed Fordham Spire -- which at 1,458 feet would be the tallest building in Chicago and the nation, not counting the spire that would top it out at about 2,000 feet -- is the least important thing about it, its architect and developer say.

"There is nothing special about being the highest, and that has never been our goal," architect Santiago Calatrava insists. "The important thing was to find the right shape. To create the slender, ethereal effect we want, it was necessary for it to be very tall. But if it were 10 feet shorter than the Sears Tower [which is 1,450 feet], it would make no difference."

Fordham Co. chairman Chris Carley adds that the attention given to the Fordham Spire's height is mostly "a distraction from the fact that it's a great building by a great architect."

'A major selling point'

But that hasn't stopped the Fordham Spire's public relations campaign from trumpeting the phrase "nation's tallest building" prominently in its press materials -- for which there's a good reason.

"There's a tremendous amount of PR value to developers and architects in going after the title of 'nation's tallest building' or 'world's tallest building,' " says Chicago architect Adrian Smith, the designer of what will be the world's new tallest building -- a mixed-use tower of "substantially more than 2,000 feet," that is scheduled for completion in 2008 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

"It heightens the visibility of the project and becomes a major selling point," says Smith, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "In the case of Dubai, for example, they're trying to become a tourist destination in the Middle East and build the city into an economic center."

Besides, consumers are simply drawn by the "tallest" moniker, as evidenced by the fact that the Dubai building's apartments and condominiums were sold out within three days of the project's announcement.

[lofter1]

re: Fordham Spire

oooh, nice...


T W I S T & S H O U T : C A L A T R A V A ! ! !

[Ninjahedge]

Holy nightmarish floor plans batman!!!!!


Also, I wonder where the tuned mass damper is going to be? With than much spiral, it is awfully hard to get the brace frames that far from center......

[lofter1]

Here is a link to a terrific Calatrava site (titled "The Unofficial Site"):

http://www.calatrava.info/

No info there yet on Fordham Spire, but lots of great images and info on his other works.

[Jasonik]

Tower would get city in touch with its feminine side

July 26, 2005

BY KEVIN NANCE ARCHITECTURE CRITIC
Chicago Sun-Times (http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-kevin26.html)


The tradition of Chicago architecture is a manly one, and not only because virtually all of its best-known architects (notwithstanding current rising stars Carol Ross Barney and Jeanne Gang) have been men. From Jenney to Sullivan to Mies, the signal qualities of great buildings in the City of Big Shoulders have had masculine connotations: a pumped-up muscularity, a solidity, a broadness. We're particularly defined by our tall buildings, and can anything be more phallic than a skyscraper? Symbolically speaking, we're a metropolis of satyrs.


But if his proposed Fordham Spire manages to clear the regulatory, political and financial briar patch that now lies before it, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava will bring something startlingly new to the Chicago skyline: a feminine mystique.

Although he tends to distance himself from interpretations of his designs as "organic" or anthropomorphic -- the evocative nature of his work, he claims, is usually a byproduct of structural considerations -- Calatrava has designed a building that looks for all the world like a tall, stately woman in a flowing, gauzy gown that swirls around her legs. It's exactly the manner of Ginger Rogers on a dance floor with Fred Astaire: the ethereal lightness, the illusion of movement. You're ready to fly down to Rio whenever she is.

You find this sensuous, even sexy quality in the unlikeliest corners of Calatrava's output. It's there in his bridges and transit stations, which are often topped with curving, undulant structures that hint at a feminine languor, of which I think the architect is at least partly aware.

The evidence is in his preparatory doodlings for projects like the Liege Railway station in Belgium, which include a watercolor sketch of a voluptuously reclining female nude; the station roof's curves echo hers. There's more of this kind of thing in his Fordham Spire sketchbook, which is full of lithe dancers straight out of Matisse.

Joining the boys club


Then there are Calatrava's interior spaces, many of which are as genital as anything in the famously humid flower paintings of Georgia O'Keefe. (The artist always denied that she intended any such imagery, and maybe she didn't, but failing to see it requires an act of willful blindness.) The exterior of Calatrava's addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum is often compared to a bird spreading its wings, but look inside at the main hall and you'll see, in its bisected ceiling and related ornaments, wings of a different sort.

It's a tricky business, politically and otherwise, to impute gender characteristics to inanimate objects, but of course we do it all the time. In our Anglo-Saxon lexicon, ships are female; so are certain countries and, in fact, the Earth. In the Romance languages, including Calatrava's native tongue, every noun is assigned a feminine or masculine article. If he thinks of bridges, airport terminals, train stations and even skyscrapers in terms of the female, why not?

And if this produces a building that adds a fresh element to the boys club of Chicago architecture, cherchez la femme.

SLIDESHOW (http://www.suntimes.com/popups/spire/1.html)

[TonyO]

Great design. Am I the only one pissed this isn't going to be here?

[londonlawyer]

This is awesone.

This tower does not belong in NY for several reasons:

1. NY is an anti-development city. We can't even build a stadium in a dilapidated area in which a private developer wants to make a $1B investment! If someone wanted to build a tower this tall here, people living in rent-controlled units would freak out that it would block their sunlight. Look at how Ratner was put over a barrel for the Gehry tower!

2. NY is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. I was shocked to see that this tower would cost $500M. In NY, this would cost at least $1.5B. Did anyone see the post in the section on Wired NY re: NYC Hotels in which a developer said that there's a lot of demand for new hotels and that developers want to build them but that it's too expensive to make it worthwhile? This is a problem. In my opinion, the city should get developers to build high end hotels on the blighted sections of 5th that I've mentioned and acquire the sites via eminent domain.

PS: This is the quote that I referred to:

"....Still, some developers see a downside to the current market. Izak Senbahar, who built the year-old Alex hotel at 205 E. 45th St., says land is too expensive. He paid $85 a square foot for the land where The Alex stands; today, he says, he would have to pay between $300 and $400 a square foot.

"I'd love to build another hotel," says Mr. Senbahar, who owns seven residential properties here. "But it's hard to make the financial analysis work with those numbers."

©2005 Crain Communications Inc.

[JeffreyNYC]

^hello...Freedom Tower? (If either are built)


Other than FT wasn't the con ed supposed to have an 85 floor office tower with 3 80 floor apt? or was that cancelled, other than that, your right, chicago makes NY look like it has no balls.


While the Freedom Tower will be quite tall, it will actually be no taller than the original WTC., accept for yet another antenna. Chicago still ranks number 1 in terms of building height in the country. They have no where near the number of buildings New York has but the ones it does have do really scrape the sky! More power to Chicago, they lack in many ways for such a large city but they certainly strive for fantastic architecture and development!

[NoyokA]

For some reason whenever I see Fordham Spire I think Freedom Spire.

The design is somewhat unoriginal, I've always had that complaint of Calatrava but with some fine tuning it should look fine enough and to an unknowing critic it should look fantastic. I suppose thats all that matters.

[JD]

Are you saying that the spire is unoriginal, Stern? It fits well with the building, I think, which is a lot more than can be said for, say, the pile that sits atop a very graceful Bloomberg Building.

Calatrava is a genius. That's an overused word, but he's worthy of it in its proper sense.

[pianoman11686]

^hello...Freedom Tower? (If either are built)


Other than FT wasn't the con ed supposed to have an 85 floor office tower with 3 80 floor apt? or was that cancelled, other than that, your right, chicago makes NY look like it has no balls.

No, you cannot compare this to the Freedom Tower. The two have nothing in common. One is residential/hotel, the other is commercial. One will be built in Chicago, the other in New York. One is being built by a private developer financed by a bank, the other by someone who is using insurance money. The Freedom Tower will be built, whereas Fordham Spire is not definite.

Why are you bringing up Con Ed? The site is being cleared, as someone mentioned, and we haven't even seen renderings from a winning architect. There's no telling what will happen.

Maybe if you had some point of reference with the South Dearborn Tower that was proposed several years ago, you would agree how similar that proposal was to the Fordham Spire. The building was to be the nation's tallest, with a spire reaching 2,000 feet. It would have been part hotel, part residential. It would have been located in almost the exact same spot on the lakefront, and would also have had a very slender, albeit more traditional, shape.

On a different note...It's interesting that we're seeing the beginnings of a New Yorkish resistance to tall construction in this "Streeterville" part of town. Call me crazy, but if Chicago eventually attracts enough wealthy residents who are anti-development for the same reasons as those on the Upper West and East sides, this type of building may soon be unbuildable there as well, or at least will be downsized significantly.

[czsz]

The design doesn't really say "Chicago" to me...it's a city of right angles, and elegantly so. This looks like a sort of arbitrary anomaly.

[NoyokA]

Are you saying that the spire is unoriginal, Stern? It fits well with the building, I think, which is a lot more than can be said for, say, the pile that sits atop a very graceful Bloomberg Building.

Calatrava is a genius. That's an overused word, but he's worthy of it in its proper sense.

Not the spire but the spiral.

[krulltime]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/thumbnails/graphic/2005-07/18655831.gif

I love it! Is just beautiful... Dont you wish you can be in one of those twisting apartments!

Please guys let it grow in Chicago... We will get more buildings here with more names like Caltrava and others. :p

[JD]

For some reason whenever I see Fordham Spire I think Freedom Spire.

The design is somewhat unoriginal, I've always had that complaint of Calatrava but with some fine tuning it should look fine enough and to an unknowing critic it should look fantastic. I suppose thats all that matters.

I'm perplexed, Stern. How can the design be unoriginal? I can't think of another building in the world like it--save, perhaps, Calatrava's new tower in Sweden. And that looks positively blah compared to this thing.

[londonlawyer]

PS: This makes Santiago's cube design for South Street look retarded!

[ablarc]

The design is somewhat unoriginal, I've always had that complaint of Calatrava but with some fine tuning it should look fine enough and to an unknowing critic it should look fantastic. I suppose thats all that matters.
Not to jump on you, Stern, but I find these two sentences utterly incomprehensible. What were you thinking? If Calatrava--the most genuinely inventive architect-- is unoriginal, then who fits your criteria for originality?

Since I'm one of the unknowing critics, I need some enlightenment from someone who's knowing.

[PHLguy]

While the Freedom Tower will be quite tall, it will actually be no taller than the original WTC., accept for yet another antenna. Chicago still ranks number 1 in terms of building height in the country. They have no where near the number of buildings New York has but the ones it does have do really scrape the sky! More power to Chicago, they lack in many ways for such a large city but they certainly strive for fantastic architecture and development!


The freedom tower will be barely shorter than the fortham spire, only 90 feet away from roof and 200 feet away from spire.

http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?

Chicago and NY should be pretty tied with supertalls in the years to come, Freedom tower is as high as sears, The other WTC will be more than 1000 feet and if there really is an 85 story tower in the eastside and a 40 MSF development on the westside than we shall be tied up, Chicago and NY make a good team IMO, 10 years from now we'll kick the crap out of most of the world.

[Alonzo-ny]

This tower is another reason why calatrava is one of, probably my most favourite architects its quite different for a high rise i think anyway. And no it doesnt make his cube design look retarded at all. It does make me cry inside knowing chicago while we get shit as usually, nothing to compare at all in terms of really big skyscrapers

[lofter1]

Comparing the Fordham Spire To 80 South St. is like the old apples and oranges thing:

FS is ~ 2000' tall with 400-500 units totalling ~920,000 st. sq.

South St. is ~ 835' tall with maybe 24 units totalling ~120,000 ft. sq.

[PHLguy]

You counted the spire on one and left it out on caltrave, but yea still Fordham is like twice as tall. I think NY deserves something like this (Chicago deserves it too but they already have like 5 supertalls in the making and we have 2 or 3.

[ryan]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)
July 27, 2005
The Desire for Tallest Building Persists (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/arts/design/27tall.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1122443082-+EGqafyu14R8Gcx8FcvQYg)

By ROBIN POGREBIN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=ROBIN%20POGREBIN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=ROBIN%20POGREBIN&inline=nyt-per)
Given the haunting image of the collapsing twin towers, it's hard for many Americans to fathom the enduring urge to build tall.

Yet now come plans for the nation's tallest skyscraper, a condominium and hotel building designed by Santiago Calatrava for Chicago's Near North lakefront. At 2,000 feet, the building, the Fordham Spire, would beat out the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower planned for ground zero.

Internationally, both of these designs are dwarfed by the Burj Tower under construction in Dubai, which is expected to reach 2,300 feet. Once completed, the Burj will overtake Taipei 101, a 1,667-foot office tower, as the world's tallest. And the Taipei building is certainly a short-time record holder; only in October did it surpass the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

"There are real bragging rights to being the tallest that go back 3,000 years," said Carol Willis, the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan. "Exceeding or exalting for spiritual reasons or a demonstration of power dates back from Babylon on - wanting to take a place in history, reserve a place in the timeline. Height is a fixation."

For all the talk about jitters deterring potential tenants of a future Freedom Tower, the 9/11 terrorist attack has done little or nothing to diminish a global appetite to touch the sky. "The number of tall buildings being built around the world is at an all-time high," said Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a professional group.

Chicago already has three of the 15 tallest buildings in the world: the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Center and Aon Center.

"The skyscraper was born in Chicago," said Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, director and president of the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. "The whole concept of the skyscraper has always been indigenous to the city."

Developers are planning four buildings of around 80 stories in the city, Mr. Klemencic said. (The Fordham Spire is to rise to 115 stories by 2009.) Miami, San Francisco and Las Vegas are also in the midst of bustling high-rise construction.

David M. Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the architect who designed the Freedom Tower, said he was not at all troubled by the notion that its height would be eclipsed by that of Mr. Calatrava's building. "More power to him," he said.

Mr. Childs pointed out that under current Federal Aviation Administration rules, Mr. Calatrava's proposed 2,000-foot tower is as tall as any building is allowed to be. And the Freedom Tower was not meant to be higher, given the patriotic symbolism of 1,776 feet mandated by Daniel Libeskind's master plan. Mr. Childs designed the roof and rooftop parapet to match the height of the two original World Trade Center buildings (1,362 feet and 1,368 feet); the antenna completes the distance to the top.

But the developer behind Burj Tower, Balfour Beatty, has made clear his intention to set - and keep - the record for the world's tallest building. "If anyone comes close," Ms. Willis said, "they'll build a taller spire."

That, of course, raises that perennial question in the skyscraper world: Does the spire count? Isn't it kind of cheating?

The Council on Tall Buildings, which certifies the tallest structures, has determined that the spire counts if it is "integral to the architecture of the building," Mr. Klemencic said.

"If you take off the top of the Chrysler Building, it doesn't look like the Chrysler Building anymore," he explained. "But if you take the antennas off the Hancock Tower, it still looks like the Hancock Tower."

The Freedom Tower's spire is expected to set off some squabbling. "I'm sure there will be heated debate," Mr. Klemencic said.

The 2,000-foot-high Calatrava building in Chicago, to be built by the developer Christopher T. Carley, would be 1,458 feet without its spire - only eight feet taller than the Sears Tower.

Architecture buffs revel in the lore of such competition, recalling how the Chrysler Building beat out the Bank of Manhattan tower in 1929 with the last-minute hoisting of a secretly planned stainless steel top. In 1931, of course, the Chrysler was bested by the Empire State Building, which yielded the title to the World Trade Center four decades later.

While the Calatrava building may be major news for the country, experts say it is old hat for much of the rest of the world, particularly Asia. Hong Kong, with its notorious population density, has more skyscrapers than New York, Ms. Willis said, and its residential buildings typically reach 60 stories these days.

Along Shanghai's jostling skyline, plans are under way for an 1,614-foot tower, China's tallest, as part of the Shanghai World Financial Center. "They're not afraid of height at all," Ms. Willis said of developers in Asia. "There is no anxiety. They both need the space and want the attention."

Some New Yorkers no doubt remain deeply wary of living or working in skyscrapers in the aftermath of 9/11. More than any other building, the Freedom Tower is a natural locus for fears of a violent recurrence.

But architectural experts say that in general, plenty of people and institutions will succumb to the spell of an architecturally prominent tall building, not to mention the view. "All you need is the right number of people with sufficient money," Ms. Willis said.


Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/07/26/arts/27tall.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifSantiago Calatrava S.A.

At about 2,000 feet tall, the Fordham Spire would be the tallest building in the United States when all building elements are counted. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif

[Kolbster]

PS: This makes Santiago's cube design for South Street look retarded!


You are dead right. this building is amazing.

God, this is the first post i read after coming back from camp...just my luck!!!

this made my day!!! I'm all excited now! I'm a little sad it's not in New York, but what ever...gives me all the more reason to go and visit chicago! A beautiful building is a beautiful building, regardless of where it is built

[londonlawyer]

It's true. The outrageous cost of building in NY and the opposition of NIMBYs leads to a lot of crap. Trump Chicago is was better than anything The Donald has built here (including the 850 foot box by that good, Condylis). Of everything built here in recent years, Bears Stearns, Time Warner and some of the new Times Square buildings are the only great ones. Let's keep our fingers crossed for Gehry's tower. Personally, I'm not a great fan of the cubes.

[ablarc]

This is the time of Championship Architecture.

And Calatrava's the new Champ!

He's such a crowd pleaser; who doesn't like a Calatrava building?

There has always been a premier professional in architecture, someone who by popular agreement held the crown of World’s Greatest Architect—just as there is (almost) always a heavyweight boxing champ. The former title is more subjectively determined, but most of the time opinion elevates some individual to the role by general agreement, or at least the opinion of a plurality.

Fifty years ago the title was held by LeCorbusier, who enjoyed a long reign as champ. He was invited to design capital cities, and even a kind of Capitol Building for the whole world (the United Nations). Arrogant and swell-headed, he managed to antagonize almost everyone while retaining his title.

On his death, Corb was succeeded by Louis Kahn, who also got to design a capital city (Dacca). In comparison, Kahn was humble, rational and controlled, while simultaneously a poet and mystic. He pried open the door to neo-traditional forms (post-Modernism), though he would have been appalled by the superficiality he thus unleashed. Truth is, nobody could apply Kahn’s method except Kahn himself.

Being a late starter and dying in relatively short order, he was succeeded by I.M. Pei, who, like Floyd Patterson, simply didn’t have the stature to hold the title. This was wrested from him first by Michael Graves (a flash in the pan), and then Norman Foster, who had more staying power.

Foster in turn lost the title to glitter-artist Frank Gehry, the reigning champ currently being unseated by Santiago Calatrava, who extracts just as much flash from within the bounds of rational mathematics as Gehry does from the movement of his hand. In architecture, intellectual rigor trumps artistic sprezzatura if the product is equally flashy. In the case of Calatrava, it appears to be just that.

Besides, like Saarinen, Calatrava doesn’t repeat himself too much.

[kz1000ps]

^ Good post. Gehry's designs don't excite me the way Calatrava's do, and it's precisely because of what you said about the rational grounds evident in all his work. When I look at this new tower, I first and foremost see a snake in motion (a friend across the hall has two of them so I watch their movements a lot). The way how the ripples coarse through the structure simultaneously makes the tower feel supple and giving, but also very muscular and tensile, as if it's ready to make some kind of momentous movement. Also, its proximity to Lake Point Tower will help it to blend in (although that's not really possible with a city's/country's/continent's tallest) since it's curves do clash with Chicago's elegant edginess, as czsz put it. Maybe that area could be zoned for "effeminate structures."

[Fabrizio]

.... and let´s not forget Renzo Piano ("Piano" means "slow" in Italian.... his time is soon coming...)

Ablarc: your list would have to include Phillip J. (far from worlds greatest ...but certainly very popular and in demand) and of course Mies V.d.R. for his huge influence.

[londonlawyer]

I just read an article from the Chicago Trib about this tower and just learned that this is far from certain. Firstly, there's no financing, and it would be extremely hard to procure given that (1) the Chicago market appears to be saturated; and (2) the prices for the units will be dramatically beyond the Chicago market prices (though they'd be an utter give-away by NY standards).

Moreover, the developer said that even if he procured financing, he would not start construction until 40% of the units are pre-sold. Good luck!

[ablarc]

Ablarc: your list would have to include Phillip J. (far from worlds greatest ...but certainly very popular and in demand) and of course Mies V.d.R. for his huge influence.
They were contenders, but never champs.

At any time, there's only one champ.

Piano's a contender too, but he'll never be Champ.

[michelle1]

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A proposal to build a new 115-story building by 2009 could give Chicago claim to having the first and second tallest skyscrapers in the country.
The 2,000-foot tower, proposed by Chicago developer Christopher Carley and designed by noted architect Santiago Calatrava, would go up along the city's lakefront near Navy Pier, northeast of the Loop.
The 110-floor Sears Tower is currently the nation's tallest building. Carley's building, minus its spire, would be 1,458 feet high -- taller than the Sears Tower by eight feet.
No financing for what would be a hotel and condo tower has yet been arranged and some rival developers say the proposal does not seem feasible.
If it is ever completed, the skyscraper would also surpass the height of New York's planned Freedom Tower, which would be 1,362 feet tall, plus a spire to
stretch it to 1,776 feet. The Freedom Tower is expected to be completed in 2010.
The world's tallest building is currently the 1,670-foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan.
The proposed Chicago skyscraper, designed in a twisting shape like an enormous drill bit, is designed by the Spanish-born architect and engineer who designed the Milwaukee Art Museum addition and the Athens Olympic sports complex.
No financing for what would be a hotel and condo tower has yet been arranged, said Carley, the chairman of Fordham Co. The new building would be called the Fordham Spire.
Construction would not begin until there are sales agreements for about 40 percent of its units, Carley said. He said he'd like to break ground in March and complete the building in four years.
Some rival developers say the proposal does not seem feasible and they express skepticism that the Fordham Spire will ever be built.
Developer Donald Trump, who is constructing a 92-floor, 1,360-foot skyscraper in Chicago for luxury condominium buyers, said Carley's proposed building would not be economically viable in the post-September 11 climate.

"Nobody is going to want to live in a building that's a target," he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Carley countered that his skyscraper is in the same league as Trump's.
"I wonder where the insanity limit is. It must be just over 1,360 feet," he said, referring to Trump's building.
Carley also said his project's association with such a highly acclaimed architect as Calatrava would help, because "financiers are in awe of this man."
City officials in Chicago sounded guarded.
"We saw the plan and we'll consider it," said Connie Buscemi, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Planning and Development.

[Citytect]

I love all of Calatrava's projects so far. But this one I'm going to have to absorb a little longer. It's definately not bad. But I agree with Stern; it's not very original. Twisting tower, rotating floorplates. That's not an original idea really. The renderings show that the idea is well executed. But still not original.

Strangely, though, I want to think of this as a nicer version of the previous Freedom Tower design: If Calatrava took over Childs ideas, twisted the tower more, reworked the cabled mast/spire top, you might get the Fordham Spire tower. At least in my head.

Still, I'd like to see this built. But I think the chances it will be are very slim.

[ablarc]

I love all of Calatrava's projects so far. But this one I'm going to have to absorb a little longer. It's definately not bad. But I agree with Stern; it's not very original. Twisting tower, rotating floorplates. That's not an original idea really. The renderings show that the idea is well executed. But still not original.
greenie, not too long ago there were architecture schools where architectural history wasn't taught, for fear of impeding the student's creativity by letting him in on the dirty little truth that there's hardly anything new under the sun.

Calatrava differs from all the other spiralists in that he'll work this thing out structurally so that it makes sense as the pure application of a simple principle. I suspect it's not just cantilever but also corbel.

In any case it will be utterly rigorous and therefore beautiful. He won't ask his structural engineers to figure out how to build the form, as Gehry has to; Calatrava is the structural engineer. And the form derives from an understanding of structure from the get-go, not the stroke of a hand.

To illustrate:

The great structural Engineer Gustave Eiffel designed the structure of two well-known buildings: the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.

In the first case, the structure was dictated by his cutting edge mastery of engineering as it was understood at the time. This enabled him to come up with a structure that weighs less than the column of air defined by its footprint and projected to its height of 300 meters. Maybe he just shepherded pure mathematics down its path of inevitability on that one. Every piece of metal in that tower is stressed and helping to hold up the building, except the little decorative curlicues that wander around the arches. Lighter than air!

If you've been inside the Statue of Liberty you know it's a rat's nest of opportunistically-placed struts, an image of complicated chaos. That's because he inherited the form from Bartholdi, the sculptor of the statue. Eiffel's structure was the servant of the pre-existent form of the sculpture; his only job was to make the structure hold the statue up economically, not to make the structure itself beautiful. The work of art is on the outside, and already done by someone else. He might have used mathematics to calculate the structure, but the form of the building itself wasn't generated by mathematical calculations.

Calatrava is more often like the Eiffel of the Tower than he is like the Eiffel of the Statue.

[pianoman11686]

"The skyscraper was born in Chicago," said Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, director and president of the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. "The whole concept of the skyscraper has always been indigenous to the city."

A little presumptuous, no?

[ablarc]

A little presumptuous, no?
I think all he's saying is that skyscrapers originated in Chicago (true), and have always been there since. I don't think he meant that Chicago had exclusive rights to the concept, or whatever else might have led you to think him presumptuous.

New York's got a better collection anyway. And it's a better city.:)

[TLOZ Link5]

Is anyone else reminded of the robotics company HQ in I, Robot when looking at these renderings?

Re the comparisons between Fordham Spire and 80 South Street, I still think ours is better ;-)

[Alonzo-ny]

greenie, not too long ago there were architecture schools where architectural history wasn't taught, for fear of impeding the student's creativity by letting him in on the dirty little truth that there's hardly anything new under the sun.

Calatrava differs from all the other spiralists in that he'll work this thing out structurally so that it makes sense as the pure application of a simple principle. I suspect it's not just cantilever but also corbel.

In any case it will be utterly rigorous and therefore beautiful. He won't ask his structural engineers to figure out how to build the form, as Gehry has to; Calatrava is the structural engineer. And the form derives from an understanding of structure from the get-go, not the stroke of a hand.

To illustrate:

The great structural Engineer Gustave Eiffel designed the structure of two well-known buildings: the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.

In the first case, the structure was dictated by his cutting edge mastery of engineering as it was understood at the time. This enabled him to come up with a structure that weighs less than the column of air defined by its footprint and projected to its height of 300 meters. Maybe he just shepherded pure mathematics down its path of inevitability on that one. Every piece of metal in that tower is stressed and helping to hold up the building, except the little decorative curlicues that wander around the arches. Lighter than air!

If you've been inside the Statue of Liberty you know it's a rat's nest of opportunistically-placed struts, an image of complicated chaos. That's because he inherited the form from Bartholdi, the sculptor of the statue. Eiffel's structure was the servant of the pre-existent form of the sculpture; his only job was to make the structure hold the statue up economically, not to make the structure itself beautiful. The work of art is on the outside, and already done by someone else. He might have used mathematics to calculate the structure, but the form of the building itself wasn't generated by mathematical calculations.

Calatrava is more often like the Eiffel of the Tower than he is like the Eiffel of the Statue.

Well put and i dont think it looks anything like the i robot building. I think its a very original design for a building more unique than anything ive seen for a while. I dont think think it will happen though, maybe if the condo sales go through the roof but it looks like and also sounds like it will go down the same road as south dearborn and the others

[Citytect]

ablarc, I've always admired Calatrava's use of the structure to create a beautiful form. I understand what makes him an amazing architect. He designs buildings that have perfect harmony of structure and form.

This building just seems to lack the grace of his other projects. Mainly, I think, because the form the structure takes here is a bit too contrived.

But don't get me wrong, I think it could be a very nice building. I'd go as far as to say, I like it. I just don't think it's as good as Mr. Calatrava is capable of. Not one of his best, in my opinion.

[ablarc]

I understand what makes him an amazing architect. He designs buildings that have perfect harmony of structure and form.
Well said.

[TonyO]

The Slatin Report
CHI 07 27 05

THE SPIRE: CHICAGO LITE?

Peter Slatin



Is it possible? Could it happen? Of course it could.

Whether it should is another story.

Chicago developer Christopher Carley of Fordham Company could find lenders willing to finance his proposed $500 million, 115-story, 2,000-foot-tall condo/hotel, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. And he could find a couple of hundred souls willing and able to pay the estimated $850 a square foot for the privilege of living in a pad (or is it a pod) designed by one of this or any century's great architects. Compared with the $2.000-a-foot-plus residential towers of New York or Hong Kong, that's a bargain-basement price for the top of the line at the top of the sky.

If any American city can call upon its history of buildings to demonstrate that it deserves a new symbol, Chicago certainly qualifies. But this project should not be mistaken for that symbol, as I fear it has been. What unifies and underlies Chicago’s great buildings is an urban scheme that embraces its realm rather than notches its belt over height and deal considerations. That notion, of a broader idea than simply a towering, needlenosed presence, is singularly lacking in the Carley proposal. But then, with an architect earning – rightfully, in my view – up to $1,500 an hour for design services (at least on some public-realm jobs – we don’t know his fees in this case), the developer may not wish to spring for more comprehensive and thoughtful solutions. To some real estate minds, a trophy property is plan enough; other ideas will simply follow.

In a national market where project financing for condo development has been easy, and in a local market – Chicago's – where it has been child's play, bringing Chicago into third place in Condo Nation after Miami and San Diego in condo construction and conversion (according to Property & Portfolio Research), the arrival of Fordham Spire was inevitable.

So why is this grand gesture such a big, bitter pill to swallow? For those of us who have long advocated that forward-looking, inventive architecture and planning form the basis for good development, that they provide enhanced value and longevity, the selection of a design genius like Calatrava for an iconic project such as Fordham Spire should represent the fulfillment of a cherished ideal. Instead, it signals that developers now believe that today's best-known architects not only sell condos, they sell financing.

Developers are beginning to wave their architects around like letters of credit to get bankers on board, or like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to tame community boards and critics. Such newfound zeal for design can and should be a good thing, and we should applaud it.

Unless it's a pyramid scheme – and this slender, twisting triangle is a physical expression of such. In June, the developer narrowly escaped foreclosure of his recently completed 50-story condo tower with a $53 million refinancing from Corus bank. Carley needed to refinance because of slow sales, something that Chicago developers are feeling all over town in this condo-besotted city. The spectacular nature of the Calatrava proposal will naturally draw attention away from Carley's other problems, including a suit by disgruntled purchasers of units in another Carley building. And once financing and fees are in place to build Fordham Spire, concerns on other projects can be resolved – until the next time.

Calatrava, an artist in architect’s gear, has nonetheless seized the opportunity to create another inspiring design, though it is certainly not as exciting as other projects he has on the drawing board. Over the course of the past 15 years, he has shown fearsome tenacity in moving his seemingly impossible projects forward. His first major project award in this country – the competition-winning design for a $25 million biosphere at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine – came to naught, but catapulted him into a higher sphere of recognition. He received scattered commissions across the country since then, but his big breakthrough came earlier this decade with the opening of his addition to he Milwaukee Art Museum. The big nod came in January of 2004 when he was designated for the $2 billion PATH transit station at Ground Zero.

That was followed almost immediately with the unveiling of another – very different – condominium development, known as Townhouses in the Sky, with developer Frank Sciame on a waterfront site on historic South Street at the foot of Manhattan.

Sciame, a well-regarded New York developer and contractor, declined to discuss his project, because it is in the approvals process with the New York State Attorney General. But the Townhouses are a wholly different animal than Fordham Spire: a dozen units, each 45 feet square, stacked and twisting gradually upward from a base holding a cultural center to a height of 835 feet. At the time of the announcement, despite a groundswell of critical acclaim, widespread goodwill and the scorching Manhattan condo market, most observers saw little chance of success. But Sciame’s current silence actually may bode will for this project.

(The PATH station itself is being re-engineered for two reasons. The first was to address renewed security concerns, expressed long before the London Underground attacks and consistent with the police concerns that led to the redesign of the hapless Freedom Tower. The second was to bring costs back into line. One source told The Slatin Report that the projected $2 billion budget had ballooned to $3 billion; another source told us that the redesign had reduced the station’s size and altered the materials while leaving its appearance relatively unchanged. The new designs are expected to be unveiled at a public meeting of the Port Authority on Thursday.)

The net effect of a proposal such as Fordham Spire, and of its successful completion, should be to raise the bar for the future of development and design. In fact, the opposite has occurred: a great designer is commoditized, and a great city is caricatured.

[ryan]

Re the comparisons between Fordham Spire and 80 South Street, I still think ours is better ;-)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Fordham is pretty, but 80 South Street feels more interesting to me. I like how mechanical it looks.

[NoyokA]

The problem with the Chicago proposal is that it’s entirely a piece of sculpture with no context to the city. I’ve always criticized Calatrava as being a gifted sculptor and not an architect. The NYC proposal works in NY because it features familiar forms, that said it might not even work in midtown, but it has the square forms and the incredible height to width ratio and spire of prewar buildings. Calatrava’s Chicago proposal would not work in NYC and it most definitely does not work in Chicago a city dominated by jumbo boxy skyscrapers. This building is not entirely original, as I have already mentioned it shares a lot with Turning Torso, likewise that building is successful because it stands as abstract sculpture and this building would be successful if it was built as its design intends it as a standalone sculpture. It is alienated from the city fabric.

[JMGarcia]

Personally, I love the design and have no problem with how it fits into Chicago. Having recently been in that exact location I think it is fine to have something this unusual there. The black monolith of the JH tower was no less unusual when built.

I am not an engineer or an architect but I do know there is only so much you can do creatively with a structure of that height that needs to be thin enough for residential as well as minimize wind loads and sway for the comfort of residents. I have a very strong feeling the shape of the tower is in direct response to the engineering needs.

[ryan]

I have a very strong feeling the shape of the tower is in direct response to the engineering needs.

Yes - Calatrava creates elegant form that solves functional problems, without hiding the function. It's much more interesting than pomo fake facades.

I also think that this project's difference is a positive - even in Manhattan (especially in Manhattan) diversity makes the skyline more interesting. There's enough black boxes already...

[JD]

Stern, I'm just not following your argument. Calatrava's tower doesn't "fit" into Chicago the way the Chrysler Building and its outrageous spire didn't fit into 1930 NYC. There was no precedent for that curved, kooky spire, and critics of the time said as much.

An immense box might "fit" into Chicago's skyline more smoothly, but what's the point? Chicago--and NYC--have enough boxes. Calatrava's design stands out, and that's fine.

Every new project must balance between contextualism and originality. Contextual the Calatrava building is not, but it's so lovely that it deserves to be built.

As others on this board have noted, though, it's a l-o-n-g way from a pretty rendering to construction. We'll see if this beauty ever gets into the sky.

[JD]

The Slatin Report
CHI 07 27 05

THE SPIRE: CHICAGO LITE?

Peter Slatin



Is it possible? Could it happen? Of course it could.

Whether it should is another story.

Chicago developer Christopher Carley of Fordham Company could find lenders willing to finance his proposed $500 million, 115-story, 2,000-foot-tall condo/hotel, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. And he could find a couple of hundred souls willing and able to pay the estimated $850 a square foot for the privilege of living in a pad (or is it a pod) designed by one of this or any century's great architects. Compared with the $2.000-a-foot-plus residential towers of New York or Hong Kong, that's a bargain-basement price for the top of the line at the top of the sky.

If any American city can call upon its history of buildings to demonstrate that it deserves a new symbol, Chicago certainly qualifies. But this project should not be mistaken for that symbol, as I fear it has been. What unifies and underlies Chicago’s great buildings is an urban scheme that embraces its realm rather than notches its belt over height and deal considerations. That notion, of a broader idea than simply a towering, needlenosed presence, is singularly lacking in the Carley proposal. But then, with an architect earning – rightfully, in my view – up to $1,500 an hour for design services (at least on some public-realm jobs – we don’t know his fees in this case), the developer may not wish to spring for more comprehensive and thoughtful solutions. To some real estate minds, a trophy property is plan enough; other ideas will simply follow.

In a national market where project financing for condo development has been easy, and in a local market – Chicago's – where it has been child's play, bringing Chicago into third place in Condo Nation after Miami and San Diego in condo construction and conversion (according to Property & Portfolio Research), the arrival of Fordham Spire was inevitable.

So why is this grand gesture such a big, bitter pill to swallow? For those of us who have long advocated that forward-looking, inventive architecture and planning form the basis for good development, that they provide enhanced value and longevity, the selection of a design genius like Calatrava for an iconic project such as Fordham Spire should represent the fulfillment of a cherished ideal. Instead, it signals that developers now believe that today's best-known architects not only sell condos, they sell financing.

Developers are beginning to wave their architects around like letters of credit to get bankers on board, or like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to tame community boards and critics. Such newfound zeal for design can and should be a good thing, and we should applaud it.

Unless it's a pyramid scheme – and this slender, twisting triangle is a physical expression of such. In June, the developer narrowly escaped foreclosure of his recently completed 50-story condo tower with a $53 million refinancing from Corus bank. Carley needed to refinance because of slow sales, something that Chicago developers are feeling all over town in this condo-besotted city. The spectacular nature of the Calatrava proposal will naturally draw attention away from Carley's other problems, including a suit by disgruntled purchasers of units in another Carley building. And once financing and fees are in place to build Fordham Spire, concerns on other projects can be resolved – until the next time.

Calatrava, an artist in architect’s gear, has nonetheless seized the opportunity to create another inspiring design, though it is certainly not as exciting as other projects he has on the drawing board. Over the course of the past 15 years, he has shown fearsome tenacity in moving his seemingly impossible projects forward. His first major project award in this country – the competition-winning design for a $25 million biosphere at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine – came to naught, but catapulted him into a higher sphere of recognition. He received scattered commissions across the country since then, but his big breakthrough came earlier this decade with the opening of his addition to he Milwaukee Art Museum. The big nod came in January of 2004 when he was designated for the $2 billion PATH transit station at Ground Zero.

That was followed almost immediately with the unveiling of another – very different – condominium development, known as Townhouses in the Sky, with developer Frank Sciame on a waterfront site on historic South Street at the foot of Manhattan.

Sciame, a well-regarded New York developer and contractor, declined to discuss his project, because it is in the approvals process with the New York State Attorney General. But the Townhouses are a wholly different animal than Fordham Spire: a dozen units, each 45 feet square, stacked and twisting gradually upward from a base holding a cultural center to a height of 835 feet. At the time of the announcement, despite a groundswell of critical acclaim, widespread goodwill and the scorching Manhattan condo market, most observers saw little chance of success. But Sciame’s current silence actually may bode will for this project.

(The PATH station itself is being re-engineered for two reasons. The first was to address renewed security concerns, expressed long before the London Underground attacks and consistent with the police concerns that led to the redesign of the hapless Freedom Tower. The second was to bring costs back into line. One source told The Slatin Report that the projected $2 billion budget had ballooned to $3 billion; another source told us that the redesign had reduced the station’s size and altered the materials while leaving its appearance relatively unchanged. The new designs are expected to be unveiled at a public meeting of the Port Authority on Thursday.)

The net effect of a proposal such as Fordham Spire, and of its successful completion, should be to raise the bar for the future of development and design. In fact, the opposite has occurred: a great designer is commoditized, and a great city is caricatured.

This is like something right out of Ellsworth Toohey in "The Fountainhead." The author says he stands for first-rate architecture...he wants daring...but isn't it reprehensible that there's so much, well, money involved here? Why, getting this genius architect on board, is, well, SELLING this project, this "pyramid scheme."

There are no big ideas in this tower, you see. It's just a trophy property, a bunch of "pods."

This critic neglects to describe what "broader idea" this tower should serve. Perhaps one that includes a pod he can afford?

[Fabrizio]

Let´s remember that one of THE most photographed buildings in Chicago all through the 1960´s was the Marina City apartments. They are round and space-agey and had NOTHING to do with the style of the city.... but by now, they are Chicago icons.

I agree that the twisty-turning thing is fast becoming a cliche but the Calatrava building is at least an elegant rendition...

[JD]

I agree that the twisty-turning thing is fast becoming a cliche but the Calatrava building is at least an elegant rendition...

I don't see how the bravura engineering in Calatrava's work is a cliche. Aside from his skyscraper in Sweden, what other examples are there--by him or by anyone else?

[Fabrizio]

I don't see how the bravura engineering in Calatrava's work is a cliche. Aside from his skyscraper in Sweden, what other examples are there--by him or by anyone else?

Where do I say that the "engineering in Calatrava's work is a cliche". ?

I am speaking about the twisting walls... a style element that we have seen other many architects propose as well (built or unbuilt). BTW: at least judging by the renderings, I think this building is absolutely beautiful.

[ablarc]

Fabrizio and JD, you guys are both right; there's no contradiction in the aggregate of what you've said.

I would add: it makes all the difference how well you do something.

Calatrava does everything well. Compare this building and Twisting Torso with the misbegotten mud-pie that was Freedom Tower.

You know what the auteur theory says...

That also explains why Quinlan Terry's good, though someone not especially versed in classical architecture might not be able to perceive his originality. That doesn't mean there is none; that just means people need to sharpen their powers of discrimination.

Some people can tell a Petrus from a Lafite; some can only tell a bordeaux from a burgundy; and others can do neither.

[czsz]

someone not especially versed in classical architecture might not be able to perceive his originality. That doesn't mean there is none; that just means people need to sharpen their powers of discrimination.

There is a difference between variation and originality. When such a wide gap exists as between classicism and modernism, as well as other styles, a slight variation in classical content can no longer be considered as original as it would have been in 1763.

[Jasonik]

JD, you don't have to quote the entire post, and furthermore it violates the forum code of conduct.

[stache]

I'm so glad you brought that up. Plus I would love to see more editing with the cut and pastes in general.

[ablarc]

There is a difference between variation and originality. When such a wide gap exists as between classicism and modernism, as well as other styles, a slight variation in classical content can no longer be considered as original as it would have been in 1763.
Probably true. There's a coarsening of people's ability to make distinctions.

[BVictor1]

Okay, this is the information that I have so far...

Yes, the building is still in its conseptual stages, but so what, every great design must go through this process. There's always a bit of refining and fine tuning.

The lady at the sales center told me today, that they are getting many calls from prople who are seriously interested in the building. Where as Trump's building drew alot of the wealthy from the U.S, this building is drawing a lot if international interest. Some of these people are willing and ready to put money down NOW...

The flloor plans at this point are still incomplete, but she said that she believes that Calatrava is working with DeStafano + Partners on the interior layout.

Shawn and myself also got a chance to look at the building model. Oh, my , god... It's so ****ing SWEET...........

Also, the lady at the sales center sent me a copy of the press release package that was distributed this past wednesday. Below are some of the scanned pages of that package, some computer generated images of the model were also included, and I will post them when I get the chance..


http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/4416/f11cy.png

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/3286/f25no.png

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/294/f31ae.png

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5535/statement7xp.png

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7840/t10of.png

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3001/t20zx.png

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8980/t34dq.png

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2685/t49ic.png

[TLOZ Link5]

All the best to Chicago and best of luck to Carley. It's about time that that city's tallest building was also truly among its most beautiful.

I am, however, a bit confused by Calatrava and Carley's logic as to how this building's use as a residential building, as opposed to an office tower, will somehow make it less likely to be targeted by terrorists. It's true that Al Qaeda or other related organizations would not be attacking the headquarters or office space of the major corporations located in Chicago if they plotted to attack Fordham Spire. But who is to say that they won't be tempted to assassinate the executives or other major figures in said companies, who might end up buying units in the building?

[stache]

Very good point. Terrorists are going after symbolism and publicity.

[ablarc]

^ A residential building's much less densely occupied at its peak (nighttime) than an office building. They wouldn't get to kill nearly as many people.

[BVictor1]

This was in todays Chicago Tribune, Sunday July 31, 2005.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2005-07/18742543.gif

[pianoman11686]

What can I tell you? Russia is just not that exciting. Chicago's hot right now, but I think it will take a route similar to Miami (as opposed to New York) when the real estate boom subsides.

[Citytect]

What's up with that terrible base?

[ablarc]

What's up with that terrible base?
Pretty bad, alright. It's the program as conveyor of marketing "savvy". Even three stories of retail's a stretch; they could consider a five or six story mall like Trump Tower's, or fill up the base with five or six stories of squared-off residential. Not being in the tower, this would fetch less per square foot.

[BVictor1]

I went to a website called Chicagoarchitecture.info, and I was reading the comments that people posted. Only 2 of the posters didn't like Fordham Spire, but one guy really went on a Chicago bashing campaign. Below is what he said....

Nicholas Gregoris
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 @ 2:48am
My father was born and raised in New York City. My mother was born and raised in Chicago. And I thank God that I was born and raised in the heart of New York City, in the Borough of Manhattan,just nine blocks north of the WTC site. Once again, Chicago shows that it has no class and no respect, just a rightlly deserved inferiority complex. In the early 1970s Chicago deliberately built the Sears Tower in order to surpass the Twin Towers of New York. New York takes the worst hit on 9/11 --I almost lost my father and my younger sister on 9/11--and even before it has a chance to reconstruct its even more famous skyline,Chicago seeks to put a damper on the proposed Freedom Tower that is meant to be a symbol not just for New York City but for the entire nation and the free, civilized world redefined after 9/11. Granted, I must admit that despite the recent changes to the master plan that the Freedom Tower still falls short of its high potential. The news about the Fordham Spire has only convinced me that over the course of the next five to ten years that the current plans for Ground Zero's Freedom Tower need to be revised. I still believe that New York deserves to replace its Twin Towers with two main towers and not just a single main tower. I have never quite understood the rationale behind Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg's decision for a single tower and not a more esthetically appealing redesign of the old Twin Towers. After all that has been done thus far to alter Mr. Libeskind's original master plan, is it too far fetched to imagine that nothing is set in stone, that the Freedom Tower could be redesigned even more appropriately as a timely response to this subtle slap from the Windy City? For argument's sake, does the Freedom Tower have to be 1776 feet? Could it not be 2001 feet to commemorate the actual year in which the 9/11 tragedy took place? Or could the designers of the Freedom Tower think outside of the box a little and perhaps strive for nearly 3,000 feet as a way of paying tribute to all those people who perished on 9/11? Chicago is the Second City, not the First. In my experience, having lived in Europe for almost eight years and in the United States for twenty-five years, no one looks seriously to Chicago, with or without its mediocre skyline, as the cosmopolitan capital of the United States. The late great Pope John Paul II once referred to New York City (and not to Chicago) as "the Capital of the World." In my opinion, Chicago will always remain a big Midwestern town trying, grasping in vain to outdo the Big Apple in the Empire State. I sincerely hope that this project fails. However, even if it does succeed I hope that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Mr. Trump or some other more ambitious New York architects and real estate big shots, will have enough pride and patience to out-fight, out-fox Chicago for an even more beautiful, "breath-taking" and taller building. I think that after what happened on 9/11 that the City of New York, and not the City of Chicago, nor any other North American City for that matter, deserves the distinction of having the tallest building in the country, perhaps the world, in its downtown. Building skycrapers for the sake of fame and fortune only is not what I'm trying to get at. Does private enterprise always have to take a back seat to national interests such as 9/11? As for Mr.Calatrava (selected for the transportation hub at New WTC), did he ever think about how he is unwittingly undermining the construction of the World Trade Center Site by participating in this project? Probably not! There is no loyalty among men who worship the God of mammon and could care less about the symbolic value of their actions for the greater good.



What do you guys think about these words? I was quite disappointed...Seeing as the majority of the members of this forum are New Yorkers, I was just wondering if you felt the same as this gentleman???

[ablarc]

Chicago should build anything it wants; more power to it.

New York should come up with something better than the present proposal for the World Trade Center site.

Friendly rivalry's fine; hostility and malice aren't.

[TLOZ Link5]

I've heard mostly good things about Chicago from my friends who have been there. Having never gone there (though I wish to), I can't pass judgment. I see the rivalry between Chicago and New York as mostly friendly, though sometimes I can't help but wonder if Chicago does harbor a bit of an inferiority complex towards New York. I mean, if Chicago is a great city, is there a need to be so intent on proving it?

I say, kudos to Chicago for proposing a tower so daring and beautiful. I just hope that New Yorkers don't warm to the idea of having the Freedom Tower as a skyline cap of sorts; otherwise, we'll never catch up ;-)

[Alonzo-ny]

Dont worry the way manhattan is sooner or later it wont be an option not to build taller and taller. Also ill be visiting chicago at the beginning of next month so i can then judge fairly chicago

[Citytect]

I passed by one of these decorative wind turbine things today and thought of this building design...

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b195/nova_cain/other/f060a39e.jpg

[ablarc]

Those are elegant. Like Calatrava's building they take a simplicity and make it complex. Or do they make a complexity simple?

[spyguy999]

A little update.

BVictor has found out that the roof height is now at 1550'/1600' with the spire still reaching to 2000'. The base has been completely redesigned and the podium-like thing is now gone. The spire has also been redesigned and an antenna is also integrated with it.

[BVictor1]

Well, I guess that we can't conplian that the height of Fordham and Sears are too close...
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/8076/f19hu.png

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/9413/f23kj.png

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1595/f30ur.png

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/372/f43lk.png

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1866/f50xu.png

Now, I don't know if you all can read that clearly, but it says, 1,550 FEET TO THE ROOF AND 1,600 FEET TO THE TOP OF THE WATERTANK
Steely, does this mean we get to change the height on the name of this thread?????????????:cheers: :cheers: :omg: :omg:

[BVictor1]

A member of Skyscraperpage.com and Skyscrapercity.com did some wonderful 3-D model renderings of the Chicago Skyline that includes Fordham Spire, Trump Tower and Waterview Tower.

http://skyscrapermodels.us/FS01.jpg
I thought this was a cool one, especially with the reflections near the base.
http://skyscrapermodels.us/spiral.jpg
Over I-290 looking east.
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/290_East.jpg
Looking up from base.
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/DDDAAAMMMNNNN.jpg
From the 103rd floor Sears SkyDeck
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/FS_Skydeck.jpg
From the 94th floor Hancock Observatory
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/FS_JHC.jpg
Panorama-rama
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/Pano_w_spire.jpg
Aerial shot
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/airshot.jpg
From the roof of Lake Point Tower
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/LPT_Roof.jpg
Finally, a view for the truely privellaged, the 115th floor of Fordham Spire
http://skyscrapermodels.us/pics/viewfromthetop.jpg

[Johnnyboy]

if build, this will definetly be one of my favorite buildings.

[injcsince81]

cool, but looks too much like a drill bit.

I give it 7-8 out of 10.

[spyguy999]

BVictor has also reported that some units (including at least one penthouse) have been reserved from VIPs. Remember that this building is not even approved yet (goes to the plan commission next week) so taking reservations is a little risky. The top units (duplexes) should be in the $10-20+ million range.

[BVictor1]

Here are a few images from the March 16th plan commission meeting, where the Fordham Spire was approved by the commission.

A newer redering.
http://images.snapfish.com/346579%3B72%7Ffp345%3Enu%3D3238%3E868%3E492%3EWSNR CG%3D3233593%3B899%3B5nu0mrj

A few shots of Calatrava.
http://images.snapfish.com/346579%3B72%7Ffp33%3A%3Enu%3D3238%3E868%3E492%3EWS NRCG%3D3233593%3B79%3B63nu0mrj

http://images.snapfish.com/346579%3B72%7Ffp344%3Enu%3D3238%3E868%3E492%3EWSNR CG%3D3233593%3B79%3B64nu0mrj

[BVictor1]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...D9gcg&refer=us (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aCjoeY0D9gcg&refer=us)

Chicago Tower, Tallest in U.S., Gets Zoning Approval (Update1)
Kevin Orland


A proposed condominium and hotel tower that would be the tallest building in North America won approval from the Chicago City Council's Planning Commission today, putting it a step closer to the start of construction later this year.

The $550 million, 124-story building designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and developed by the Fordham Co. will have about 300 condominiums, 250,000 square feet of hotel space and retail and restaurants, Fordham Chairman Chris Carley said.

Carley said he expects the full city council to approve the plan at its next meeting on March 29.

``This building will be not only a landmark but an icon in the skyline of Chicago,'' Carley said at a news conference in Chicago today.

The Fordham Spire will be 2,000 feet tall, topping Chicago's Sears Tower and the planned Freedom Tower in New York as the tallest building in North America. Construction would begin around the end of the year, and the building would be completed by 2010.

Carley said he plans to announce the hotel operator, a five-star operator that will be new to Chicago, in about 30 days.

`Slender, Transparent'

The building has a twisting design that resembles a drill bit and will be topped by a 400-foot spire. The site overlooks the Chicago River where it meets Lake Michigan.

``I wanted to do a very slender building, and a very transparent one,'' Calatrava said at a news conference today.

Calatrava and Carley have made some changes to the design since the project was proposed last year. Calatrava removed a pedestal on which the building would have stood and tightened the spiral shape of the building.

Carley said he already has reservations for 30 of the condominiums and will take more beginning in April. The condos, which will start at about 700 square feet, may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot, Carley said.

Fordham is a closely held real-estate developer based in Chicago that Carley founded in 1988. The company has three developments in Chicago's Gold Coast and North Michigan Avenue areas.

[BVictor1]

Big step for 2,000-ft. spire

March 17, 2006

BY DAVID ROEDER Business Reporter Advertisement

City planners Thursday cleared for takeoff a new architectural landmark on the city's lakeshore, a 124-story, 2,000-foot-tall building described as a celebration of Chicago's history and spirit, especially its willingness to take a chance on a half-a-billion-dollar investment.

The Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved a zoning change to allow the building, which will vie for the title of "world's tallest," depending on the outcome of building proposals overseas. It would certainly be Chicago's tallest, topping Sears Tower by nearly 500 feet.

The architect is Santiago Calatrava, a Spaniard whose buildings, bridges and artwork have brought him worldwide fame. His style is innovative and, many in real estate say, extremely expensive.

The commission vote and past praise for the building uttered by Mayor Daley make City Council approval of the project a foregone conclusion. But while it has passed its political and planning checkpoints, the project now faces its financial test.

The developer, Fordham Co. Chairman Christopher Carley, said he is finalizing the details of a financing proposal from a European investment firm. That deal is expected to require that Carley sell half the 300 condominiums and 150 hotel units in the building before he can start construction.

Its location is 420 E. North Water St., just off Lake Shore Drive and opposite Navy Pier. It is immediately north of where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan, almost the spot where Chicago got its start as a frontier trading post.

Asked the chances of the building getting done, Carley said, "I'm a developer, so it's always 100 percent." He said he has backup financing proposals from two U.S. firms and other sources of debt and equity for the estimated $550 million project.

That figure is $50 million higher than what Carley quoted when he announced the project last year. Developers of all varieties have grappled with sharply higher costs, and Calatrava's work is known for hefty overruns. Many of his commissions, such as his acclaimed design for the Milwaukee Art Museum, have been for public agencies that need a finished project and are therefore tolerant of busted budgets.

It's possible a private developer won't be so accommodating if the Fordham Spire, as it's called, can't stand straight in the balance sheet. Carley has a history of residential projects on the Near North Side that win praise from architecture critics and buyers, but encounter financing difficulties.

One Chicago developer who has worked with Calatrava said the building will never be started. "Calatrava is intolerant of the changes and compromises you sometimes have to make. He will bleed Carley white," the developer said.

During a press conference that followed the Plan Commission vote, Calatrava said he'll work with Carley to control costs. "I go into the challenge of reviewing a project for costs thinking that I can make it better," he said.

Carley commented that Calatrava "understands economic feasibility" because, aside from being an artist and an architect, he's also an engineer.

Sales contracts for units could be signed starting in about 90 days, Carley said, and he hopes for groundbreaking by early 2007.

For Carley, the financial calculus requires him to sell units at top-of-the-market prices. He said that's doable because the Calatrava name recommends the building to elite buyers, many of them overseas. "People will pay an additional amount for beautiful architecture," he said.

He also said the building's relatively small size, about 950,000 square feet, typical of a 50-story rectangular office building, makes it easier to finance. By comparison, the Trump Tower now under construction at 401 N. Wabash is a bit shorter, at 92 stories, but contains 2.4 million square feet.

The Calatrava design is "tall, slender and elegant," to use Carley's words, and in recent weeks he's gotten substantial agreement from neighbors of the south Streeterville site. Downtown Chicagoans often complain about new high-rises blocking views, but they mostly supported the Calatrava proposal.

An alternative might have been worse for them. Carley noted that the site's previous zoning allowed him to build two buildings of 35 and 50 stories on the same property, doing more to block views and sunlight.

The Fordham Spire had support from the strong community organization, the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, and Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), a Plan Commission member.

Natarus lavished praises on the project and its architect during the hearing, bestowing on Calatrava the name "maestro." Natarus said, "I say this without a doubt, that this building belongs to Chicago and should be in Chicago as opposed to any other city in the world."

After the hearing, Carley was asked if the possibility of terrorism makes it foolish to build exceedingly tall. Terrorism "definitely has to be considered, but it is evolving and changing shape," he said, arguing that the threat from hijacked airplanes has diminished.

Emphasis was placed on keeping trucks away from the building and on designing a narrow base for visibility, Carley said.


BUILDING FACTS
Location: 420 E. North Water at Lake Shore Drive.
Developer: Christopher Carley of Fordham Co.
Architect: Santiago Calatrava.
Official name: Fordham Spire.
Unofficial name: The Drill Bit, and less charitably, the Screw, have been used. Likely to be called the Calatrava.
Height: 124 stories; 1,600 feet to the roof plus a spire that goes to 2,000 feet.
Gross area: 950,000 square feet.
Uses: 300 condominiums, 150 for-sale hotel rooms, 640 parking spaces, possible antennas for digital broadcasting.
Prices: Too much if you have to ask. Think $900 to $1,100 a square foot.
Estimated cost: $550 million.
Target date for groundbreaking: Late 2006, early 2007.
Proposed completion: 2010
Recent design changes: Large pedestal removed, parking spaces relocated to separate building, spire reconfigured to hide antennas.
Financing: Almost secured, developer says.
SOURCES: Fordham Co., Sun-Times reports

http://www.suntimes.com/output/busin...in-tall17.html (http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-tall17.html)

[BVictor1]

(Toronto Star)

Chicago re-enters tall tower race
Twisting glass spiral on waterfront
CN Tower gets more competition

Mar. 17, 2006. 01:00 AM
NICOLAAS VAN RIJN


A global epidemic of tower envy is spreading to North America.

First, a consortium of Japanese broadcasters announced plans earlier this week to build a 600-metre-tall tower in Tokyo, leaving Toronto's 553-metre CN Tower sulking deep in its global shadow.

Now Chicago city council's planning commission has given the nod to the Fordham Spire, a 610-metre (2,001-ft) corkscrewing colossus that will create a new exclamation mark in the skyline of the city where the skyscraper was born.

Billed by its developers, the Fordham Co., as "Chicago's first major skyline statement of the 21st century," the slender twisting spire will take form on a weed-infested patch of gravel, grass and trees on the Chicago River near where it empties into Lake Michigan.

"This building will be not only a landmark, but an icon in the skyline of Chicago," Fordham's chairman, Chris Carley, told a Chicago news conference yesterday.

Despite Chicago's nickname as "the windy city," the Fordham Spire is more than just a lot of hot air. In the planning stages since last year, the project is expected to get approval from the full city council at its next meeting March 29.

But not everyone is jumping for joy.

New York developer Donald Trump, who is stickhandling plans for his own — smaller — Chicago tower, thinks the post-9/11 climate has made super-tall buildings chancy.

"In this climate I would not want to build that building," Trump said last year when the project was first announced. "Nor would I want to live in that building.

"Any bank that would put up money to build a building like that would be insane," he added.

But Fordham's Carley wasn't impressed, noting Trump's planned tower, at 415 metres, is itself no wilting lily.

"I wonder where the insanity limit is," Carley wondered last summer, adding "It must be just over" 415 metres.

When built, the Fordham Spire will easily top Chicago's other tall building — the 442-metre Sears Tower.

Billed as North America's tallest building when it's completed by 2010, the Fordham Spire will also dwarf the proposed Freedom Tower in New York, designed to top out at an iconic 1,776 feet, or 541 metres.

Still, there is the United Arab Emirates' Burj Dubai Tower, begun in 2004 and scheduled for completion in 2009.

Its builders claim that tower will top out at 705 metres — closer to 800, actually, including its broadcast mast, which isn't counted in these tall tales.

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0603170167mar17,1,6897063.story?coll=chi-nonmmxent-utl (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0603170167mar17,1,6897063.story?coll=chi-nonmmxent-utl)

Commission high on tower

Lakefront structure gets an early OK

By Thomas Corfman and Blair Kamin
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 17, 2006

A proposal to put up the nation's tallest building on the city's lakefront took a key step forward Thursday when the Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved the project and its developer waxed optimistic that a five-star hotel for the $550 million skyscraper will be announced in 30 days.

Christopher Carley and renowned Zurich-based architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava acknowledged that the cost of the 2,000-foot corkscrew tower has risen by 10 percent from last July, when it was announced.

They also revealed design changes, including some meant to combat the threat of terrorism. A parking garage will not be located at the base of the building, as originally planned, to prevent a vehicle-delivered bomb from harming the tower, as one did at the World Trade Center in 1993.

But at City Hall, where the commission met, the mood was adulatory as Calatrava sketched his design for a transfixed audience that rewarded him with applause, including a standing ovation from Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), in whose ward the soaring, slender tower would be built.

Calling Calatrava "maestro," Natarus cracked, "At this time, I am making my bid to have the sketches."

The project must still be reviewed by the Chicago City Council's Zoning Committee, which meets March 23, and would then be considered by the full council on March 29, said prominent zoning attorney Jack George of Chicago-based Daley & George LLP, which represents the project.

The plan commission's approval does not guarantee that the tower, called the Fordham Spire and named for Carley's Chicago-based development company, will be built at a high-profile location just west of Lake Shore Drive and along the north bank of the Chicago River.

In 1999 developer Scott Toberman received city approval for a proposed 112-story, 1,914-foot office and condominium tower at 7 S. Dearborn St., but the project collapsed a year later when the developer failed to obtain financing.

On the other hand, New York developer Donald Trump held a highly publicized ceremonial groundbreaking for his 90-story Chicago hotel and condominium tower in late 2004, two years after he received the plan commission's nod.

Carley, asked to rate his chances of building the tower on a scale of 0 to 100, responded, "I'm a developer, so it's always 100."

He added that he has a non-binding financing commitment for the entire project from a major European financial institution, though he is still exploring alternatives. In addition, he said, about 30 prospective buyers have made "reservations" for the tower's high-priced condominiums. Typically, such arrangements hold a place in line for the buyers and are not legally binding.

Carley expects prices to begin at $900 to $1,000 a square foot, he said, a higher starting point than Trump achieved when he began marketing his tower.

In another move that could improve long-term cash flow, the skyscraper's spire has been modified so it could accommodate broadcast antennas.

Carley stressed, however, that he is not in negotiations with local broadcasters who have been seeking a new platform to transmit high-definition television signals.

At a press conference at a Loop restaurant after the commission meeting, Carley and Calatrava detailed other changes to the twisting tower, which has attracted international attention because of its departure from the boxy steel-and-glass norm of the Chicago skyline:

- Although the tower's total height remains unchanged, its spire now reaches 400 feet above the roof, about 150 feet less than in the original design. The roof, on the other hand, has risen to 1,570 feet, with a 30-foot water tank above it stretching to 1,600 feet.

The roof in the first version was 1,458 feet tall, a scant eight feet higher than its counterpart at Sears Tower, now the nation's tallest building.

- The skyscraper, whose floors would rotate around its concrete core as the building rises, would now make a full 360-degree turn from bottom to top. That's a shift from the original design, which had the skyscraper turning only three-quarters of the way around. Calatrava said he made the change to accentuate the impression of a dynamic sculpture that is seemingly in motion.

- The tower would have 124 stories rather than 115 to accommodate broadcasting, air-handling and other mechanical equipment.

- It would have 300 condominiums instead of 200 to 250, and 150 hotel condominium units instead of 200.

- Parking would no longer be in a tiered four-story podium attached to the building's base. Instead, parking would be located in a separate six-story, 640-space structure, complete with a landscaped roof, to the tower's north. The garage would provide direct access to southbound lanes on lower Lake Shore Drive, a step intended to ease concerns about traffic congestion.

The influential Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, a neighborhood group, endorsed the project, though a representative expressed "some lingering concern about traffic management."

Hoping to make a contribution to Chicago's street life as well as its skyline, Calatrava also sketched a new circular plaza that will ring his tower, as well as a dramatically vaulted, five-story-tall, glassed-in lobby at its base.

Carley wants to break ground on the tower, which would be located at 420 E. N. Water St., no later than early 2007 and have the project completed in 2010.

----------

tcorfman@tribune.com

bkamin@tribune.com




Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/)

[BVictor1]

ARCHITECTURE
A new twist on Calatrava's tower

This version full of subtle, crucial improvements

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published March 19, 2006

There's an old saying in journalism: Two facts and a deadline make a trend. Well, gentle readers, this is being written Friday morning, the day after the Chicago Plan Commission approved a plan by the renowned, Zurich-based architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava for a twisting tower that would be the nation's tallest building. Your architecture critic is trying to make sense of it all and connect the trend lines.

So here goes: The design for the $550 million tower, which was breathtaking but hardly flawless when it was introduced last July, has taken some important steps forward, both in the sky and along the ground. Now here's the trend part of the story: If this tower and Jeanne Gang's sensuous Aqua high-rise both get built, Chicago will be running a clinic in the new aesthetic possibilities offered by skyscrapers that are places to live rather than work.

You can see those possibilities in the slender, but boldly sculptural, profiles of both designs. Tall residential buildings are apt to be thinner than tall office buildings so residents can be closer to the views for which they paid so dearly. They do not have to project the businesslike image of a corporation. And they are rising in a new kind of city, a post-industrial city, which manufactures culture instead of widgets.

Both proposals reflect this new reality -- Chicago, the city that plays. In Calatrava's, each successive floor would rotate slightly from the one below it, creating a drop-dead profile that has sparked comparisons with a drill bit and a corkscrew. In Gang's, balconies would undulate like waves and swells, offering a surface as varied as Lake Michigan's. Each design exhibits an exuberant, Baroque dynamism that could not be more different from the sober, steel-and-glass modernism of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, at least at first glance.

360 degrees

Calatrava accentuates this dynamism in his latest version of the hotel and condominium tower, which is called the Fordham Spire and would rise 2,000 feet (124 stories) at a high-profile site just west of Lake Shore Drive and along the north bank of the Chicago River. In the original plan, the tower rotated three-quarters of the way around. Now it does a full 360 as it whirs into the sky. Think of it as a tighter corkscrew.

While the full rotation is a subtle difference, architecture often rises and falls on subtleties. This one promises to enliven the skyline conversation that Calatrava has so bravely struck up, boldly juxtaposing the implied motion of his tower with the more static aesthetic of such modern giants as the nearby Aon Center.

The proportions of Calatrava's tower also have gotten better. The tower's spire, which is slightly shorter than in the original version, looks less willfully tall and more like a natural culmination. The overall effect suggests a grand campanile for the lakefront and Navy Pier, a vertical marker that elegantly matches the pier's emphatic, but not-so-elegant, horizontality.

Still, there are things to worry about. The renderings released Thursday by developer Christopher Carley offer little hint of what the tower's stainless steel-and-glass exterior walls will look like.

Right now, the skyscraper resembles a work of sculpture as much as a work of architecture. You wonder what the presence of real windows and real balconies will do -- and whether the inevitable budget tussles will undercut the design. The challenge for Calatrava and DeStefano + Partners, the Chicago architects working with him, is to retain the striking purity of the geometry while accommodating the messy reality of everyday life.

Speaking of everyday life, the tower's ground-level presence also represents an upgrade of the original design, which offered the bizarre prospect of the tower emerging from a tiered, four-story podium, not unlike a stripper popping out of cake.

Well, goodbye cake. Now the tower rises straight out of the ground, ringed by a circular plaza that should provide welcome open space. This is the alluring mix championed by Chicago city planners who've learned from the tall but slender "point towers" of Vancouver -- great height without stifling density. I'm still not entirely convinced that the design will offer the same satisfaction at street level as it does along the skyline, but it's definitely not going to be a visual bore.

What seems clear is that Calatrava is dealing with the ground in a very different way than the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan did in such pioneering skyscrapers as the demolished Chicago Stock Exchange Building. They had a highly articulated bottom that shaped the sidewalk, a gridded middle that expressed the building's columns and floors, and a top that suggested the capital of a classical column. Calatrava's tower, by contrast, is almost all middle. It shoots out of the ground like a rocket.

It's not that Calatrava is unaware of his responsibility to engage and enliven the tower's surroundings. He plans a tree-lined extension of the riverwalk. An adjoining six-story parking garage will have a landscaped roof, saving drivers on Lake Shore Drive (and the building's residents) from looking down on an eyesore. And there will be dramatically vaulted, five-story lobbies that contrast the tower's concrete core with their light-filled open spaces.

Architectural authority

Calatrava's expression of the core promises to endow the design with architectural authority, revealing the structural element that both braces the tower against the wind and serves as a kind of tree trunk (shades of Frank Lloyd Wright) around which the partially cantilevered floors will rotate.

Indeed, for all his differences with Mies' steel and glass boxes, Calatrava's organic design actually builds on the master's airy, space-flowing lobbies. Now, with all aspects of the design on the right track, the challenge is for Carley to obtain financing (he wants to break ground no later than early next year and complete the tower in 2010) and for Calatrava to ensure, as Mies so supremely did, that God is in his details.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2910/fordhamplan1lh.jpg

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3384/fordhambase6im.jpg


----------

bkamin@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/)

[BVictor1]

http://globest.com/news/497_497/chicago/143930-1.html (http://globest.com/news/497_497/chicago/143930-1.html)

Spire Plan Gets Warm Welcome, Financing May Be Near
By Mark Ruda
Last updated: March 16, 2006 06:58pm

A proposal to build the world’s tallest building in the 400 block of N. Lake Shore Drive was warmly endorsed Thursday by the plan commission. More importantly, Fordham Co. is closing in on a financing deal to build its $550-million project.

The 124-story glass-and-steel, spiraling building would rise on 2.2 acres at Lake Shore Drive and East North Water Street, as well as near the confluence of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. The city is building DuSable Park on the lakefront, across the street from the proposed Fordham Spire.


The 150 hotel rooms would be on the lower 25 floors while 300 condominiums would be on the upper floors. Each floor would be rotated slightly, producing a spiral effect. The proposed 1,570-foot building will be topped with a 400-foot set of broadcast antennas. Despite being the tallest building in the world, Fordham Spire’s 950,500 sf is in line with density limits under current zoning for the site.


However, Fordham Spire will set the high-water mark for local condominium prices. “We’re looking to average $1,100 to $1,200 per sf, but that’s over the next four years,” Fordham Co. chairman Christopher Carley says. That would equate to $6 million for 5,000-sf penthouse units on the upper floors. Panoramic views will help drive the price, Carley believes. “The interiors are going to be so spectacular,” he adds.


Carley tells GlobeSt.com negotiations could deliver a financing package next month. “We’re working with a major international financial institution and we hope to have a signed term sheet in the next 30 days,” he says.


Plan commission member John Nelson notes one of the previous plans for the world’s tallest building, a proposal at Madison and Dearborn streets, relied heavily on revenue from the broadcast antennas. “In our financing, it has been underwritten without antenna revenue,” Carley says. “The feasibility is not in the antennas, but the condominiums and hotel.”


However, the star of Thursday’s presentation was Santiago Calatrava, who flew in from Switzerland for the meeting. The renowned Spanish architect’s portfolio includes another building on Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum. “I know what this city represents for modern architecture,” Calatrava says. “The building has the capacity of embellishing the every-day life of the people in the neighborhood.”


Calatrava drew a parallel between the Fordham Spire and the Eiffel Tower. “I think this is a very unique, historical moment in the city of Chicago,” says 42nd Ward Alderman Burton F. Natarus. “This building belongs to Chicago, rather than any other city in the world.”

[lofter1]

Congratulations, Chicago!!

[ablarc]

The influential Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, a neighborhood group, endorsed the project...
What are chances of hearing this in New York before the neighborhood sucked the art right out of the project? They'd start with the height, of course.

[spyguy999]

What are chances of hearing this in New York before the neighborhood sucked the art right out of the project? They'd start with the height, of course.
Don't be too impressed. In this particular case they didn't have any logical arguments on density, height/shadows, traffic, etc. and they would have to go against the opinions of almost all influential local politicians. SOAR has objected to many of those towers that are in the "reaching for the sky" thread and has at least killed the 4th Presbyterian project.

[ablarc]

In this particular case they didn't have any logical arguments on density, height/shadows, traffic, etc.
Do they have to be logical?

Why did they have no arguments? Is the lot very large? Are there no neighbors?

[lofter1]

A Design Refined ...

July 2005 / March 2006

http://images.suntimes.com/popups/spire/images/spire_only.jpg ........... http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2910/fordhamplan1lh.jpg

[spyguy999]

Do they have to be logical?

Why did they have no arguments? Is the lot very large? Are there no neighbors?
NIMBY's are never logical ;)

But in this case the developer could have built two chunky boxes within zoning limits that would cast even larger shadows and probably wouldn't be as elegant or have a chance at being famous. The street is also basically a dead end. However, to their credit, they managed to get rid of the horrible pedestal base from before but at the same time there's probably little chance of an observation deck now.

[MidtownGuy]

Chicago showing NY how it's done. Moscow showing NY up with their new tower...Dubai, let's not even go there.

I just don't get it. All that Bullsh*t about FT being the tallest building, it won't even be tallest in the USA now.
What a joke. What an embarrassment!
FT doesn't even look good, let alone compete on height. 1776' indeed. I'm angry! Happy for Chicago- but angry at the reality here in NY.

Here, we're all creaming over BOA, a beautiful tower no doubt, but I wish it was taller, to make a real peak for the midtown skyline instead of another blip in the plateau, struggling to poke through. We need peaks!

And now those old fart NIMBY-nuts near the ConEd site will make sure we don't get any peaks there either.

My rant is over, it's too late at night for me to get so worked up...
but New York needs to regain some of the can-do spirit that once made it great.

[Kris]

New York's new motto: Nothing must stick out.

[lofter1]

It's ^^ the Corporate way, no?

[ablarc]

Nothing out-standing.

[czsz]

There was a time when corporations, like RCA or New York Life, actually wanted to make iconic impacts on the skyline.

[ablarc]

^ Still do, in some places.

In some places they're less worried about airplanes.

[JMGarcia]

Well, NY has slowly been getting somewhat better architecturally in the last 5-10 years but still has a long way to go.

[ablarc]

Well, NY has slowly been getting somewhat better architecturally in the last 5-10 years but still has a long way to go.
Agreed on both counts, but with two caveats:

1. We're losing nice little character-laden buildings right and left because the Landmarks folks aren't doing their job.

2. With some high-profile, starchitected exceptions, the average quality of new residential buildings is at least as abysmal as ever.

[Citytect]

A new twist on Calatrava's tower

This version full of subtle, crucial improvements...

...the tower's ground-level presence also represents an upgrade of the original design, which offered the bizarre prospect of the tower emerging from a tiered, four-story podium, not unlike a stripper popping out of cake.

Well, goodbye cake. Now the tower rises straight out of the ground, ringed by a circular plaza that should provide welcome open space.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2910/fordhamplan1lh.jpg

Thank you Santiago. That base was scary.

Edit: The spire needs work, in my opinion. I see what he's trying to do with it, but it's not being accomplished. Maybe something simpler would work better.

[antinimby]

What would happen if, let's say, this had been proposed for the East side Con Ed site here in New York instead?

[MidtownGuy]

Ha! It wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. And THAT'S the problem with the process and mentality in New York.

[infoshare]

Ha! It wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. And THAT'S the problem with the process and mentality in New York.

I my opinion these issues have a lot to do with the current NYC political climate/mentaity.

All we at NYwired can do is put a "spotlight" on what is happening (or not happening)......or at least - all I will do!

cheers

[BVictor1]

Chicago, reaching higher


Published April 4, 2006

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0604040217apr04,0,3614597.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

The Sears Tower, at 1,450 feet and 110 stories, has held the title of tallest building in Chicago, and the nation, for more than three decades. But if all goes according to plan, it'll be dethroned in as few as four years.

The Chicago City Council has approved the last zoning clearance for a hotel and condominium tower designed by Santiago Calatrava. The Fordham Spire would top out at 2,000 feet and rise 124 stories from its base on the north bank of the Chicago River, just west of Lake Shore Drive.

After a pause provoked by Sept. 11, 2001, Chicago is once again reaching for the sky. The developers figure that if they build it, you will come to live and play in this building that "shoots out of the ground like a rocket," in the words of Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin. City Hall evidently agrees.

The Calatrava tower is no husky, city-of-big-shoulders hulk like the Sears. Instead it's an elegant corkscrew, very 21st Century, twisty thin and futuristic. It's designed to maximize the views for those who can afford sky-high prices, not at making a no-nonsense mercantile statement in the heartland. As such, it reflects the transformation of post-industrial Chicago.

Some will mourn the Sears Tower's descent into also-ran territory. But no No. 1 title lasts forever, and the Sears has had a good run at the top. It has held the No. 1 ranking in Chicago for 32 years. The Sears was also the tallest building in the world for 24 years until it was topped by the two Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998. (Those towers lost the No. 1 title in 2004 to the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan, which rises 1,670 feet. Taipei, in turn, will be surpassed when the Burj Dubai opens in 2008 in that Gulf emirate. Burj means "tower" in Arabic and, at 2,313 feet, that's precisely what it will do.)

If the Fordham Spire's opening here doesn't come until 2010, as is now planned, the Sears Tower will have broken a local record now held by the Chicago Board of Trade building at the foot of La Salle Street. It was the city's tallest from 1930 until 1965, when it was topped by the new county building, now called the Richard J. Daley Civic Center. (Here's a news flash for everyone who wonders why we're ignoring the Prudential Building, finished in 1955. It topped out five feet shorter than the CBOT and never was the city's tallest, even though that's been conventional wisdom in Chicago for decades.)

The Daley Center held onto the tallest title for just four years until it was knocked off the perch by the John Hancock Center. Likewise, the Hancock reigned for just four years at the top before being replaced by the Standard Oil Building, now known as the Aon Center. That building's grip on the No. 1 ranking lasted just a single year--until the Sears Tower came along.

There have been other contenders for the crown over the years. Donald Trump initially wanted to go for the No. 1 ranking before scaling back his Chicago tower now rising on the north bank of the river west of Michigan Avenue. Over the last two decades, two other super-tall projects were proposed with much fanfare--but never built.

It's no secret why the skyscraper and Chicago's horizon are such a sweet match. Chicago is endowed with a dramatic lakefront but otherwise lacks interesting geography--a topographical blank slate that makes a great backdrop for tall buildings. The economic boom in the two decades following the Great Fire of 1871 set the stage: As more businesses crowded into the city's downtown, eventually there was no place to go but up. Technology delivered two new tools--load-bearing steel and elevators--to provide architects and builders with the means to reach higher. The result, in 1885, was the first cloudbuster, as towering structures were called back then: the nine-story Home Insurance Building. Soon, those cloudbusters were crowding downtown to the consternation of many citizens.

Architect Daniel Burnham, he of make-no-little-plans fame, favored height limits in his famous 1909 Chicago master plan. The City Council passed limits in 1893 and they were on the books, if not always strictly observed, through the 1920s. Then the CBOT building became the most ambitious cloudbuster in town, and the race to be crowned the tallest was on.

The Sears Tower may relinquish that title soon. But someday so will the Fordham Spire.



Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/)

[spyguy999]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060719005906&newsLang=en

Irish Developer Will Build North America's Tallest Building in Chicago; Construction to begin on the site formerly known as the ''Fordham Spire'' in 2007

July 19, 2006

Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd & the Shelbourne Group has acquired the land and will fund the development of 400 North Lake Shore Drive. The city has already granted zoning approval for a 124-story residential and hotel tower on this site. Situated at the mouth of the Chicago River, it would be the tallest skyscraper in North America and Europe. The plan of development for the site is designed by world-renowned architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava.

Kelleher is one of Ireland's most innovative property entrepreneurs and professionals. He has an extensive interest in property development projects in London, Paris, Brussels, and the Bordeaux region of France. His love of Chicago is strong and personal. He lived in the city for 10-years beginning in 1986 when he arrived with only $500 in his wallet. He worked as a subcontractor, contractor then developer before leaving in 1996 to return to Ireland with his family.

"I love the city of Chicago," said Kelleher. "It has a special place in my heart. Two of my six children were born here and it will always be my second home. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to contribute to the Chicago skyline and look forward to developing a property that the city and the Mayor can be proud of."

The site is situated at the intersection of Lake Shore Drive and the Chicago River and will have its own Lake Shore Drive access. The plan of development calls for a building measuring approximately 2,000 feet (610 meters), to the top of the tower including spires/antennae and 1,570 feet (478 meters) to the roof - the tallest free-standing structure in North America and Europe, surpassing Chicago's Sears Tower and Toronto's CN Tower. The building will comprise of 920,000 square feet.

The $1.2 billion development would include 300 luxury condominium residences, ranging from $600,000 - $5 million, and a five-star, 20-story hotel. Approximately 50,000 square feet of retail and support space is planned for the floors overlooking the river and Lake Michigan.

Construction is anticipated to start in early 2007, with completion expected late 2010.

Tom Murphy of Thomas J. Murphy, P.C., general counsel for Kelleher says he's not surprised all this is happening in Chicago as the city holds incredible memories for Kelleher.

"Chicago is the perfect fit for Garrett to do his magic as an international developer. Not only does the city mean something special to Garrett, but he sees Chicago as the world class community that it is," said Murphy.

Bill Russell of Freeborn & Peters LLP, a Chicago law firm, has acted for Kelleher since the early 1990's and is working with him on the North Lake Shore Drive development deal.

Anglo Irish Bank is providing the financing for the site acquisition. Tony Campbell, President and CEO of Anglo Irish Bank's North America operations says, "We have a very extensive and successful relationship with Garrett Kelleher spanning well over a decade and are delighted to have the opportunity to support his renewed interest in Chicago by assisting in the financing of this site." Anglo Irish Bank is the fastest growing bank in Western Europe and has just entered the Chicago market.

Christopher T. Carley, founder and CEO of The Fordham Company, initiated the design by Calatrava, but fell short of procuring sufficient financing. Kelleher says he will consider using Carley's services going forward on the development.

About Shelbourne Development

Shelbourne Development, headquartered in Dublin, is one of Ireland's leading property development companies, widely regarded as one of the country's most professional and progressive developers. In the past three years, Shelbourne's experienced team, known for its track record in evaluating and capitalizing on cycles in property markets, has completed in excess of 1.5 million square feet of construction in Ireland. It currently has a development pipeline in Dublin in excess of $2 billion US. Shelbourne is currently pursuing developments and projects in Ireland, UK, France and Chicago. Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd & the Shelbourne Group holds significant investment properties in Europe.

-----------------------------

Quite a turnaround. After several extensions, Carley was unable to purchase the land by Monday's deadline so Shelbourne came in and bought the land but will continue with the original plan. I still hope Carley is part of the project as he was instrumental in getting the project going from hiring and meeting Calatrava to getting the project approved.

[ablarc]

Good news for Chicago, good news for architecture buffs all over the world, good news for Calatrava.

[lesterp4]

Another feather in Chicago's cap and another slap in the face for New York

[evil_synth]

Score 1 for Chicago.. :(

[spyguy999]

Didn't think it was a competition.

[pianoman11686]

^For Chicago or for New York?

[lesterp4]

^For Chicago or for New York?

It certainly is not an official competition but I get a little envious when I see the creativity in the buildings being put up in Chicago as compared to what is being built here and it is even more irritating when something interesting is proposed here the community boards try their best to destroy it.

[TREPYE]

Congratulations to Chicago. May NYC developers and city planners hang their heads in shame (if they even have any) as NYC will again looses out on having the nations tallest tower to Chicago.

[lesterp4]

I wonder if the powers to be are aware of the fact that the freedom tower will not be the tallest building in the USA as they claimed?

[STR]

^They still call it the tallest in the world, even as Burj Dubai passed its 50th floor.

[evil_synth]

I'm competitive about everything, except most sports, so yeah, I view this as a competition between New York and the World. Somewhat immature I suppose, but I can't stand it when all those other cities get great devlopements while we're stuck in NimbYork City.

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0607200250jul20,1,4589509.story?coll=chi-business-hed
Spire project changes hands
Dublin developer replaces Carley
By Susan Diesenhouse and Blair Kamin
Tribune staff reporters
Published July 20, 2006

Move over, Sears Tower.
For those who thought that the country's new tallest building, a 2,000-foot-high twisting residential spire designed by Santiago Calatrava, would never materialize along the banks of the Chicago River, its new developer says it's on the way.
The big change announced Wednesday is that the much-heralded condominium-hotel project, which now has a price tag of $1.2 billion, will be built by a Dublin-based developer, Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd. and the Shelbourne Group.
Stepping aside is the Chicago developer who initiated the 124-story project, Christopher T. Carley, chief executive of Chicago-based Fordham Co.
Shelbourne acquired the site for $64 million from Chicago-based LR Development Co., said Shelbourne's general counsel, Thomas J. Murphy.
Kelleher is providing all of the equity for the project, while the Anglo Irish Bank will provide the financing for site acquisition and construction. Murphy declined to state exactly how much of the cost is being assumed by each party.
Carley did not return a call seeking comment.
Kelleher must still negotiate to buy the striking tower design. "He loves it," said Murphy, his spokesman.
The Irish-born developer, who worked in the Chicago real estate market from 1986 to 1996, said in a statement, "I'm excited to have an opportunity to contribute to the Chicago skyline."
The tower at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive at the intersection of North Water Street, which was announced almost a year ago and would surpass the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, already has city planning and zoning approvals for a 150-room hotel and about 300 condos priced from about $600,000 to $5 million.
So far, "not a large number" of condos have been reserved by buyers, and the hotel operator must still be chosen, Murphy said.
Although thousands of new downtown condos are slated for delivery over the next few years, Kelleher thinks his project will succeed financially.
Donald Trump, who is building a 1,000-foot-plus tower in Chicago, thinks otherwise.
"It's a Grade C location and not financially feasible because the total condominium sellout couldn't be more than $900 million," said Trump, who added that Kelleher "may do a smaller building on that site unless he wants to throw out a few hundred million dollars."
Despite the paucity of condo sales, "the next step is to get the development team under contract, finalize the design plans and start construction," Murphy said.
Assembling the design/development team is of critical importance because it includes Calatrava, a world-renowned architect whose design has been much admired by architectural experts. The Spanish architect's Chicago associate is DeStefano + Partners Ltd.
The financial settlement between Fordham and its development team is still to be resolved.
"After today's closing, there will be negotiations with all the parties that have brought the project to where it now is," Murphy said.
So far the design is still in the early schematic phase. Construction, meanwhile, is scheduled to start next spring and be completed in 2010, Murphy said.
It is uncertain whether Kelleher will be able make good on his promise to start construction early next year.
Architect James DeStefano, who served as Calatrava's associate on the tower, said Kelleher could submit documents for a foundation permit this fall and might be able to start foundation work in early 2007.
But DeStefano added that only preliminary concept sketches have been done for the skyscraper. No working drawings, from which contractors actually build the design, have been completed, he said, and neither have design development drawings, which take the initial sketches beyond the concept stage.
"If there's a concerted effort, it would take six to eight months [to complete all the drawings]," DeStefano said, adding that he did not know if he would remain on the development team.
Architecture critics in Chicago and around the country have praised the thin, twisting shape of Calatrava's tower, which represents a marked departure from the boxy norm that has long reigned in Chicago.
Each floor of the stainless steel and glass tower would rotate slightly from the floor below it, allowing the skyscraper to make a full 360-degree turn from the ground to its summit. The result would be a sculptural icon that soars above nearby Navy Pier.
The design, which has been compared to a giant drill bit, represents a major change in the evolution of the skyscraper. For years, almost all were tall office buildings, though there were exceptions, such as Chicago's John Hancock Center, which mixes high-rise apartments, shops and offices.
Increasingly, however, skyscrapers are as much places to live as they are places to work. And Chicago, where the skyscraper was born, epitomizes that change.
If Calatrava's design moves forward as expected, the city will have three residential towers taller than 1,000 feet under construction, and all of them will be along the river, where uninterrupted views are a major lure to buyers.
----------
sdiesenhouse@tribune.com
bkamin@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagosuntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-carley20.html
Business
New twist in spire project
July 20, 2006
BY DAVID ROEDER Business Reporter

The buyer of Chicago lakefront land slated to get a 124-story building claimed full control of the project Wednesday and said its original developer is out of the deal for now.
Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd. in Dublin, Ireland, said he has purchased the property with a loan from Anglo Irish Bank. A spokesman for Kelleher, Chicago attorney Thomas Murphy, said the 2.2 acres was acquired for $64 million.
Murphy said Christopher Carley is not a part of the sale. Carley assembled the deal, hiring celebrity architect Santiago Calatrava for the project and navigating City Hall for approval of what would be the tallest building in North America.
Carley could stay on as a local manager of the project, but that's still to be negotiated, Murphy said. Groundbreaking could occur in early 2007.
"There's no partnership and there's no joint venture here," Murphy said. He said Carley will be paid an unspecified sum for his involvement in the deal so far.
Carley was unavailable for comment. Among the assets he has in the deal are more than 90 sales contracts, each accompanied by $20,000 in refundable deposits, he has reported getting after a test marketing period.
The building has been approved to host 300 condominiums and 150 hotel rooms, some of which also could be sold. Its Calatrava design is unique and includes a spire that could contain antennae for digital TV. Each floor is rotated about 2 degrees from the one below it, giving the building a swirling appearance. Many real estate experts have warned that Carley, who has endured financial setbacks on other major deals while managing to complete them, never understood how expensive the building would be.
In his announcement of the land sale, Kelleher placed the project's value at $1.2 billion. Carley last estimated it at $600 million.
"His may have been too optimistic and ours may be too pessimistic," Murphy said when asked to explain the difference. "Costs have changed a quite a bit in the year since this project was started."
Kelleher's firm reported having more than $2 billion of development work in progress in Dublin and work in Great Britain, Belgium and France. He spent 10 years in Chicago starting in 1986, first working as a subcontractor on small projects, before returning to Ireland with his family.
"He has been looking at a lot of projects in Chicago," Murphy said. "He comes to Chicago on a regular basis, and he has an international vision for what this building can be."
The building is slated for East North Water Street where it meets Lake Shore Drive. As the new owner, Kelleher is calling the project 400 North Lake Shore Drive for now, Murphy said.
Carley marketed it under the name Fordham Spire after his own Fordham Co.
The seller of the property is a venture aligned with LR Development Co. LLC, which could apply the proceeds to its own plans for a 57-story condo building at 515 N. Peshtigo Ct., a vacant piece about a block north of the Calatrava building.
droeder@suntimes.com

[ld876]

I'm competitive about everything, except most sports, so yeah, I view this as a competition between New York and the World. Somewhat immature I suppose, but I can't stand it when all those other cities get great devlopements while we're stuck in NimbYork City.

Thats how I see it too. I always promote the Empire State Building as NYC tallest building, still, which was built 3/4 of a century ago. I love it, but seriously, grow a pair NYC.

[TREPYE]

Let me tell you something folks; between the greedy developers, abundance of mediocre architects, absurd NIMBY's, careless politicians and fear generated by the 9-11 tradegy NYC will never even compete for the worlds tallest tower again (barring some miracle) let alone have the tallest tower in the United States. Before you FT lovers get all bent out of shape the Sears has a higher roof height that the FT. So its not worth to even get competitive about it.

So lets just hope that the stumpy buildings (in relation to the much taller towers being built in other places) that this city will build A.) do not block the views or our older more elegant and classy scrapers B) have innovative designs (i.e. Hearst Tower).

[pianoman11686]

grow a pair NYC.

NYC did grow a pair. And it was such a good pair that certain people really wanted to see it destroyed, so they flew some planes into it about 5 years ago...

[lofter1]

Before you FT lovers get all bent out of shape the Sears has a higher roof height that the FT. So its not worth to even get competitive about it.

I for one wouldn't want the Sears Tower anywhere near NYC, no matter how tall it is.

It's one fugly building -- no grace, just mass.

[ablarc]

Oh, I dunno. Not too great, but not so bad. Nice how each of the bundled tubes rises to a different height. Makes it a little bit Deco.

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...i-business-hed (http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...i-business-hed)

Tower plans still on track
Developer of spire interviewing firms

By Susan Diesenhouse
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 21, 2006


Plans to build the nation's tallest tower in Chicago, the 2,000-foot-high residential spire designed by star architect Santiago Calatrava, remain on track.

The developer, Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Dublin-based Shelbourne Development Ltd. and the Shelbourne Group, has been here this week interviewing design and engineering firms to work on the $1.2 billion, 124-story project, his attorney, Thomas J. Murphy, said Friday.

"We're pulling the master contract together with the architects and engineers who will work under the Calatrava firm's leadership," Murphy explained. "We're interviewing two great local [firms] to be the architect of record."

By early next month, Murphy plans to announce the makeup of the team. As is customary, it will include an architect and engineer of record who file documents with government agencies and the design architect who creates the concept.

Murphy put to rest questions that have cropped up over whether the Spanish-born Calatrava's plan for a twisting tower overlooking the lake and the river at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive would actually materialize.

"Our intention from the start was to have Calatrava as part of the design team," said Murphy. "His design was what excited Mr. Kelleher about the project, as well as the site's superb location."

Once this team is put together, it will conduct an environmental investigation of the site, complete the conceptual design and design documents. The three-year construction project is scheduled to start next spring. Financing will be provided by Kelleher and the Anglo Irish Bank.

"Inevitably, there will be changes in the [early] design," said Murphy. "We still have a thousand choices to make concerning the facade, landscaping, elevators."

The tower at Lake Shore Drive and North Water Street, which was announced about a year ago, would rise higher than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower. The mixed-use spire has city planning and zoning approvals for a 150-room hotel and approximately 300 condominiums priced from about $600,000 to $5 million.

Unfazed by the slowdown in housing sales, Murphy said: "This property won't come on the market for three years. Chicago is improving and by then will be great."

[malec]

Great to see this is still alive, the crowning jewel for my favourite skyline :)

[TREPYE]

Makes me wonder when Calatrava will give NYC a great scraper, if ever. :(

No question if this tower is built it will be better than anything they have in Chi-town an exponential imprevement from the ugly Sears tower.

[MidtownGuy]

It's the type of shot in the ass that NY's skyline needs.
NY, unfortunately, doen't do "radical" skyscrapers like every other ambitious city... Only boxes with perhaps a few skewed angles. It's sad and now I envy Chicago. Even Gehry's designs for NY tall buildings have been forced into a straitjacket , dumbed-down, and stop way short of meaningful height.

This is where spectacular ideas come to die.

[antinimby]

. . . and eventually (if not already) they won't even bother to come here at all.

I fear if that Foster proposal on Madison gets rejected, that's sending out a loud and clear message to all the developers and architects in New York that creative designs won't be accepted.

I guess people in this city like all their buildings to have four walls that go straight up.

[spyguy999]

Well there's some sort of activity going on around the site

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l221/Mansmith_2006/Spire/DSCN2382.jpg

This morning a fencing company had a crew there and they told me that they had a contract to put up construction barrier mesh around the site from the river to the slip. He seem sure that construction was moving forward soon.

[BVictor1]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061115005778&newsLang=en
November 15, 2006 11:47 AM Eastern Time
Shelbourne Development Group, Inc. Announces Global Team to Build 400 North Lake Shore Drive

Construction on “The Chicago Spire” to Begin in 2007



CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Shelbourne Development Group, Inc. announces its team to build “The Chicago Spire,” a landmark 2,000 foot tower on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. The building, designed by famed international architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, will be the world’s tallest residential skyscraper. Construction on The Chicago Spire, which will include exclusive condominium residences that will revolutionize Chicago living, as well as a six-star international hotel, will start before next June, with completion expected late 2010. The plan of development calls for a building measuring approximately 2,000 feet (610 meters) to the top of the tower.
Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd & the Shelbourne Development Group, Inc. acquired the property at 400 North Lake Shore Drive in July and has now finalized agreements with Calatrava and a team of world-class leading architects and engineers to bring Calatrava’s vision to life. As a pre-condition of each agreement, Kelleher required the principal or founder of each consultancy to lead its individual team. As a result, Kelleher has put in place a group of outstanding talent in all areas of skyscraper design and construction. All team members will maintain offices in Chicago for the duration of the project.
The team includes:
<LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>Santiago Calatrava – Lead Architect & Engineer – Santiago Calatrava is one of the world’s most influential architects. He initially made his name building bridges throughout Europe and is known for such highly-creative designs as the Milwaukee Art Museum and “Turning Torso” in Malmo, Sweden, the tallest building in Scandinavia. He’s also responsible for the magnificent Velodrome designed used during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. His current projects include the World Trade Center Transportation Hub at Ground Zero and 80 South St, a stunning cubed residential building in New York City’s financial district. <LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>Perkins+Will, Architect of Record – Founded in Chicago in 1935, Perkins+Will's multi-disciplinary work spans nearly every project type, including corporate, commercial, civic, higher education, healthcare, and science and technology. Highly respected globally, the firm employs 1,200 architects, interior designers and planners around the world. Perkins+Will’s project portfolio includes Boeing’s 561-foot (171 m) International Headquarters and the Aon Center, both in Chicago. The firm is also responsible for The Buildings by Daman at the Dubai International Financial Center and Concourse II at Dubai’s International Airport. Ray Clark, principal at Perkins+Will heads up The Chicago Spire project.
The Thornton-Tomasetti Group Inc., Structural Engineer of Record – The Thornton-Tomasetti Group is an international engineering and design firm that provides a wide range of services to the building industry. The firm maintains 12 offices across the United States and has a presence in Hong Kong, Moscow and Shanghai. Thornton-Tomasetti’s body of work includes the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur which stands a record 1,483-feet (452 m), Taipei 101 in Taipei and Diamond of Istanbul in Istanbul, Turkey. Richard Tomasetti, founder of The Thornton-Tomasetti Group, Inc. will direct the Chicago Spire team.
Buro Happold, Project Consultant – Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services. As part of the consortium appointed to design the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics in London, Buro Happold has an expansive global project portfolio, including the Al Faisaliah in Riyadh, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and Al Khiran Pearl City in Kuwait. International Director and Principal Padraic Kelly will lead the Buro Happold team.<LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>Savills, Plc., Property Consultants, Sales and Marketing – With over 140 offices and associates world-wide, Savills is one of the leading international property advisors globally . The company has an extensive network of offices and associates throughout the UK, mainland Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and Africa, and is currently listed among the FTSE 250 on the London Stock Exchange. Savills is considered one of the most successful agencies in London and through a partnership in Moscow is now part of the leading firm in residential real estate there. Dominic Grace, principal for Savills will lead the Chicago project. <LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>Altus Helyar, Cost Consultants – Founded in 1958 as Altus Helyar, provides cost consulting and development cost management services in the real estate industry. The company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada is the largest and oldest practice there with projects ranging from the world’s largest mall: West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Canada, First Canadian Place in Toronto and the World Financial Center in New York. The Chicago team will be headed up by senior director, Colin Kelleher. <LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>Cosentini Associates, Mechanical, Electric and Plumbing Engineer – Since its founding in 1952, Cosentini has engineered solutions for projects ranging from high performance office buildings to research laboratories to cultural and academic facilities. Cosentini’s portfolio includes the John Hancock Tower in Boston, Guggenheim Museum in Spain, Time Warner Center in New York, and the Samsung Headquarters Plaza in Seoul. The Cosentini team will be lead by director, Bruno Spiewak. <LI class=bwlistitemmarginbottom>STS Consultants, Ltd., Geotechnical Engineer –STS is an engineering consulting firm recognized for its capabilities in civil design, construction services, facilities support, high-rise foundations and transportation engineering. Established in 1948, the firm’s projects in Chicago include the 110-story Sears Tower, Waterview Tower and the John Hancock Center among others. Globally, STS was involved with the development of Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building standing at 1,671 feet (509 m). Clyde Baker, Senior principal heads up the STS Consultants, Ltd. team.
Knight E/A, Inc., Civil Engineer – Knight E/A is a full-service and multi-disciplined architectural and engineering firm providing design, planning and management services to both public and private clients. Knight E/A’s project portfolio includes Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway, Midway Airport’s new air traffic control tower and the Chicago Marine Safety Station. CEO James Wolfe will lead the Knight E/A, Inc. group.Tom Murphy of Thomas J. Murphy, P.C., Kelleher’s general counsel says, “We look forward to breaking ground on The Chicago Spire before June and building a property the city will look up to with pride.”
For more information about The Chicago Spire and Shelbourne Development Group, Inc., see http://www.shelbournedevelopment.com/ (http://www.shelbournedevelopment.com/).
About Shelbourne Development
Shelbourne Development, headquartered in Dublin, is one of Ireland's leading property development companies, widely regarded as one of the country’s most professional and progressive developers. In the past three years, Shelbourne’s experienced team, known for its track record in evaluating and capitalizing on cycles in property markets, has completed in excess of 1.5 million square feet of construction in Ireland. It currently has a development pipeline in Dublin in excess of $2 billion US. Shelbourne is currently pursuing developments and projects in Ireland, UK, France and Chicago. Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Ltd & the Shelbourne Development Group, Inc. holds significant investment properties in Europe.

[lesterp4]

I wonder if the Silverstein and Co. realize that the Freedom Tower probabpy won't even be in the top ten by the time it is finished. Architecturally NYC is becoming yesterday's news. Chicago will have 5 or six buildings taller than the Empire state in the not too distant future.

[Alonzo-ny]

Chicago will have 5 or six buildings taller than the Empire state in the not too distant future.

only 3 by 2009, whats your basis for this statement? chicago is on the up but i doubt another 3 381+ metre buildings in the near future. Also new york will have 2 taller and one equal to the spire by 2010

[TREPYE]

I wonder if the Silverstein and Co. realize that the Freedom Tower probabpy won't even be in the top ten by the time it is finished. Architecturally NYC is becoming yesterday's news. Chicago will have 5 or six buildings taller than the Empire state in the not too distant future.

Therein lies NYC's biggest quagmire; we get Silverstein, Chi-town gets Keheller. Thus, as a result, Chicago gets Santiago Calatrava to design towers we here in NYC get SOM to design towers.

Boy does that put the hard truth into prespective. :(

[pianoman11686]

While I share your sentiments, that comparison is not especially useful. In fact, we have our own visionary developer (Sciame) with his own plans for a daring residential tower, on the waterfront, by the same architect. Only a matter of finding customers to get the financing.

[ablarc]

Only a matter of finding customers to get the financing.
Tall order. Where do you find sitting ducks?

[BVictor1]

only 3 by 2009, whats your basis for this statement? chicago is on the up but i doubt another 3 381+ metre buildings in the near future. Also new york will have 2 taller and one equal to the spire by 2010

and what 2 taller buildings are you refering too? I didn't realize that there were any proposals in NYC in the 2,000' range, in fact, I don't believe there are any. And I know you have nothing proposed above the 2,000' feet, so where is your statement coming from?

[Alonzo-ny]

and what 2 taller buildings are you refering too? I didn't realize that there were any proposals in NYC in the 2,000' range, in fact, I don't believe there are any. And I know you have nothing proposed above the 2,000' feet, so where is your statement coming from?

im talking about 2 taller than the empire state not taller than 2000' and those are the new wtc towers

[antinimby]

There's no use arguing who's going to build taller and more of them.

Over the long run, Chicago is going to win that race.

New York and New Yorkers in general have lost that admiration of tall buildings.

Witness all the NIMBYism against anything tall that is proposed all around town.

Chicago doesn't have nearly the NIMBYism that New York has.

The New York NIMBYism is just another way of the public saying "WE DON'T WANT TALL."

[lofter1]

If it's cost effective they'll get built here

[Alonzo-ny]

There's no use arguing who's going to build taller and more of them.

"

theres no arguement im talking about facts. but as for the long term future ill remain optimistic that things will turn around sooner rather than later and we will have some taller buildings soon enough

[sfenn1117]

I still have doubts this tower will rise. Sure, there's an article saying construction will start in '07, just like articles that said 80 South would start by '06. Until I see a structure rising, I can't believe that this tower will actually be built.

Whereas the WTC will be built, so there are 3 guaranteed 1,000+ foot towers. We also have Hudson Yards/MSG site. Chicago only has two going up (Waterview, Trump), neither of which are taller than the ESB. Both cities are really on the same page, even though it might not seem like it.

And nimbys were against this tower. They just lost.

[Alonzo-ny]

I still have doubts this tower will rise. Sure, there's an article saying construction will start in '07, just like articles that said 80 South would start by '06. Until I see a structure rising, I can't believe that this tower will actually be built.

Whereas the WTC will be built, so there are 3 guaranteed 1,000+ foot towers. We also have Hudson Yards/MSG site. Chicago only has two going up (Waterview, Trump), neither of which are taller than the ESB. Both cities are really on the same page, even though it might not seem like it.

And nimbys were against this tower. They just lost.

yep and according to wikipedia new york has the most freestanding skyscrapers over 500ft of anywhere in the world at 184. hong kong has 188 skyscrapers but many of the residential towers rise from a common podium meaning 3 or 4 towers will be counted as one. my point being chicago has no density which is why its tallest buildings stand out so much. New york still has the most buildings in the tallest 200 and will have 4 more when boa and wtc are completed

[spyguy999]

We also have Hudson Yards/MSG site.

As does Chicago. There are multiple spots where there are unannounced 70-90+ story towers planned.

Chicago only has two going up (Waterview, Trump), neither of which are taller than the ESB. Trump is taller than ESB (why are you measuring up to ESB btw?).

And nimbys were against this tower. They just lost.Of course every building has its opponents, but the main NIMBY group (SOAR) supports this project.

[spyguy999]

my point being chicago has no density which is why its tallest buildings stand out so much. New york still has the most buildings in the tallest 200 and will have 4 more when boa and wtc are completed

I don't know about that. Chicago's tall buildings stick out because they're tall, not because there is no nearby density.

Sears is flanked by 311 South Wacker and AT&T (as well as multiple large towers along Wacker Drive).

John Hancock has buildings like Water Tower Place, Park Hyatt, 900 N. Michigan, etc. that surround it.

And Aon will be quite different in a few years, when it is surrounded by 2 Prudential, the Mandarin Oriental tower, BC-BS expansion, Aqua, and more planned supertalls.

[TREPYE]

Trump is taller than ESB


Uh....no its not. Please make sure that you know what ur talking about so that you dont look foolish. http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?C2

[Derek2k3]

I'm curious about zoning in Chicago and their whole public approval process. It seems less beureaucratic than New York's. Do Nimby's even get any attention in the media?

[spyguy999]

Uh....no its not. Please make sure that you know what ur talking about so that you dont look foolish. http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?C2

By roof, ESB is definitely taller, but by the "official" height, Trump is taller I believe.

[TREPYE]

If you clicked on the link that I showed you will see that you "believed" wrong.

[sfenn1117]

If you want to count spires or antennaes (same thing basically), the ESB would be taller than Trump. I mentioned the ESB because someone else did.

I also mentioned the MSG site because there are definite plans in the works for a building taller than the ESB. Plus, New York's supertalls are office buildings, every single one of them. Chicago's are residential/hotels. With the market already cooling off, I think any large towers will be put off until the next boom, which at the earliest wouldn't be until the end of the decade.

[Alonzo-ny]

As does Chicago. There are multiple spots where there are unannounced 70-90+ story towers planned.

oh really and how do you know this i could easily say the same about new york with no evidence

Trump is taller than ESB (why are you measuring up to ESB btw?).

the original post where this discussion originated it was said chicago will have 5 - 6 towers taller than esb in the near future

[spyguy999]

If you clicked on the link that I showed you will see that you "believed" wrong.

Roof height: http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?23884619
Pinnacle height: http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?23884613
Official height: http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?23884616

Chicago's are residential/hotels. With the market already cooling off, I think any large towers will be put off until the next boom, which at the earliest wouldn't be until the end of the decade.

Chicago's supertalls are all basically residential, that much is true. However, Chicago's market =/= New York's market. Of course some towers might not become a reality, but there are still many instances where a well designed tall building will sell over 50% in one weekend, even in this market.

oh really and how do you know this i could easily say the same about new york with no evidence

I'm not going to compromise my sources of this knowledge (some of the sites are more well than others), so I guess you'll just have to wait. All I was trying to say is that there are still many tall towers that will come online in Chicago, similar to what will happen in NY.

I'm curious about zoning in Chicago and their whole public approval process. It seems less beureaucratic than New York's. Do Nimby's even get any attention in the media?

NIMBYs aren't really paid any attention for developments on the river, other prominent areas, high-density areas, etc. However, there is a huge NIMBY movement around the city (and metro for that matter). The West Loop NIMBYs try to keep all developments under their arbitrary height number, which leads to the destruction of older buildings for mediocre midrises. There are similar NIMBY groups across the city, especially in "historic" areas or where residents try to prevent gentrification by all means possible.

[BVictor1]

Uh....no its not. Please make sure that you know what ur talking about so that you dont look foolish. http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?C2

If you clicked on the link that I showed you will see that you "believed" wrong.

Yes it is my child. He knows exactly what he's talking about.

Empire State Building
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/sh/?id=101028&txt=empire+state+building

Height (tip)1,454 ft (Not the official height) This is the height of the building with the anteanna

Height (struct.)1,250 ft Official Height

Height (roof)1,250 ft

Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/sh/?id=101030&txt=401+north+wabash

Height (tip)1,362 ft Offiaial Height (This height includes the spire, which whether you like it or not counts)

Height (struct.)1,362 ft Official Height

Height (roof)1,171 ft Height (main roof)1,131 ft


oh really and how do you know this i could easily say the same about new york with no evidence

we know people. there was a post in the skyscraperpage.com forum about this roughly 2 months ago. these tower will go in the Lake Shore East development. I myself have spoken to someone from the city on this and my questions were basically confirmed on this subject

[Alonzo-ny]

we know people. there was a post in the skyscraperpage.com forum about this roughly 2 months ago. these tower will go in the Lake Shore East development. I myself have spoken to someone from the city on this and my questions were basically confirmed on this subject

that may be but there is no evidence that you arent just saying that to make your city look good and its a bad and childish way to make a point even though you may be telling the truth

[BVictor1]

that may be but there is no evidence that you arent just saying that to make your city look good and its a bad and childish way to make a point even though you may be telling the truth

I'm not making my point in a bad nor a childish way. I'm unsing pure facts. Spyguy knows what I'm talking about as well as any other Chicago forumer on this thread. Son, I don't need to lie in order to make my city look good, it easily accomplishes that on its own.

[Alonzo-ny]

Son, I don't need to lie in order to make my city look good, it easily accomplishes that on its own.

im not you're son and i dont appreciate your condescending attitude, i like chicago alot and have nothing against large proposals there. My point is on an internet forum you have no credibility and therefore its easy to say you know of a proposal but in reality there is nothing, it has happened on this forum before so if you are using facts let me see them.

[TREPYE]

Empire State Building
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/sh/?id=101028&txt=empire+state+building

Height (tip)1,454 ft (Not the official height) This is the height of the building with the anteanna

Height (tip)1,362 ft Offiaial Height (This height includes the spire, which whether you like it or not counts)



Ok then by that logic then the petronas are taller than the Sears right
Vader? As a Chicagoan you should know better than that.

What ever ill-conceived technicality you wanna throw at me does not negate the fact that when you put these two towers next to each other ESB's roof height it taller and so is its antenna. Ok, so please.

ESB is, was, and will always be the taller one.

[spyguy999]

Ok then by that logic then the petronas are taller than the Sears right
Vader? As a Chicagoan you should know better than that.

What ever ill-conceived technicality you wanna throw at me does not negate the fact that when you put these two towers next to each other ESB's roof height it taller and so is its antenna. Ok, so please.

ESB is, was, and will always be the taller one.

Of course Chicagoans understand that point better than anyone else. But look at any official ranking or news reports and you will always see Petronas as taller than Sears, and in the same way, Trump will be taller than the ESB, unless something changes in the future.

[Alonzo-ny]

Of course Chicagoans understand that point better than anyone else. But look at any official ranking or news reports and you will always see Petronas as taller than Sears, and in the same way, Trump will be taller than the ESB, unless something changes in the future.

i thought they made 4 clear catagories now structural top, architectural top, roof and occupied floor heights

[BVictor1]

im not you're son and i dont appreciate your condescending attitude, i like chicago alot and have nothing against large proposals there. My point is on an internet forum you have no credibility and therefore its easy to say you know of a proposal but in reality there is nothing, it has happened on this forum before so if you are using facts let me see them.

That's fine!!!

BUt like I said I know. And as soon as the proof becomes available, I'll be sure to post it here so that you can see...


Ok then by that logic then the petronas are taller than the Sears right
Vader? As a Chicagoan you should know better than that.

What ever ill-conceived technicality you wanna throw at me does not negate the fact that when you put these two towers next to each other ESB's roof height it taller and so is its antenna. Ok, so please.

ESB is, was, and will always be the taller one.

Uh, yeah, I'm quite aware Petronas is taller than Sears, has been since they were built. There's already been the spire/anteanna/flag pole debate. According to the CTBUH spires count and anteannas don't. So you can believe however much you want that Empire is taller, in the books it's not nor will it ever be listed as being taller. When Trump is done, the height will be listed as 1,362'

Good day...

[kz1000ps]

Alonzo, Trepye, guys, take it easy. Spend 10 minutes on Skyscraperpage (never thought I'd utter those words..) going through the Chicago highrise threads and you'll know for a fact that BVictor1 is NOT blowing hot air up your asses. He knows people and is well respected, and that's that -- he's done nothing to show otherwise.

Trump Tower Chicago is taller than ESB New York City is the greatest city in the universe nobody knows jack s*** blah blah blah. Just be thankful the Chicago guys periodically come over here to update things and keep us from fishing through all the threads over on SSP.

[TREPYE]

I have not problem with Victor. But the REALITY of things, not TECHNICALITIES indicate that the ESB is the taller tower/structure or what ever else you wanna call it. Same thing goes for the Sears being taller than the Petronas.

If you are going to abandon common sense to accommodate an obviously subjective technicality or label (that I can easily one day see being changed) then there is nothing I can do for you. I guess I look at things a little too literally. The ESB's overall all height is 1454 ft whereas the Chicago Trump is 1362 ft which makes the ESB literally 92 feet taller.

[kz1000ps]

an obviously subjective technicality

But it's actually an obviously objective technicality, which might be even worse off. But this is a pissing contest in its formative state.. I don't want to travel down that road.

[TREPYE]

No pissing contest just a discussion dude, chill out. :)

Assuming that the antenna is still connected to the rest of the building (usually on the top pretty much the same way a spire does) can you please inform me what objective basis is there to disqualify it as a being part of a building.

If the antenna was hovering right above the building with a void in between then I could definitely see your point but thats kind impossible in the physical work we reside in so we gonna have to assume its still connected to the building.

[sfenn1117]

Well Bank of America will be taller than Aon and Hancock, which seems silly to me, but spires must count as you say.

Plus, 70-90 story towers in Chicago only equate to 700-900 feet. Witness Aqua, 83 floors, not even 830 feet. Meanwhile our 50 story office towers crack 800 feet.

Chicago has only completed 1 (one!) building this decade over 700 feet. Off the top of my head I can name six completed in New York. Both cities have built a lot the past 7 years or so, but Chicago is just starting now to build as high as in the 70s.

[Alonzo-ny]

i thought they made 4 clear catagories now structural top, architectural top, roof and occupied floor heights

the thing is that in the official ranking eg emporis is that antennas werent in the design for these buildings architecturally, they were stuck on top of a designed building so the rankings dont believe they are part of the building but placed on top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_tallest_structures

im sure everyone will be amused to know there is a chimney in kazakstan taller than the esb

[antinimby]

Okay boys, if you're done measuring your penises, can I get a question in edgewise? :D

Concerning zoning, in New York, I know you are allowed a certain amount of air rights to which you can build up to.

I'm sure Chicago has the same type of restrictions but do they generally allow for more buildable space per square foot?

[Alonzo-ny]

Okay boys, if you're done measuring your penises, can I get a question in edgewise? :D



no we're not done we cant decide if an antenna on your penis counts in total length :D

[antinimby]

Antenna or spire?

Spires count but antennae do not!

[Alonzo-ny]

Antenna or spire?

Spires count but antennae do not!

damn i lose :(

[spyguy999]

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=23109

Calatrava tower to drop spire

Dec. 06, 2006
By Eddie Baeb and Alby Gallun

The Chicago Spire is losing its point.

The developer of the proposed Streeterville tower that would be North America's tallest skyscraper on Friday plans to file design changes with the city eliminating the 430-foot antenna that tops the twisting design by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

Instead, condominium units in the building are to rise all the way to the top at 2,000 feet, says Thomas Murphy, a Chicago attorney and spokesman for the project’s developer, Garrett Kelleher of Dublin, Ireland-based Shelbourne Development Ltd.

“The silhouette will be the same, but there won’t be a spire on top,” Mr. Murphy says. “It’s good for the neighborhood, the city and the building. It makes it a sensible, rational scheme.”

The changes, which Mr. Calatrava presented to neighbors earlier this week, would allow for 1,000 condominiums, up from the current plan that calls for 300 units and a 20-story hotel, according to people briefed on the plans. The building also would move slightly north, farther away from the river, and the pedestal-shaped base would be eliminated and replaced with underground parking.

“There are many positive features and we are in the process of reviewing it,” says Gail Spreen, vice-president of the influential neighborhood group the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, which has yet to take a formal position on the changes.

Ms. Spreen, whose group was shown the plans Tuesday night, says she likes the developer’s plan to build an underground parking garage and include a large plaza along the river. She declines to comment on the new design of the building.

Sources say the developer also told neighbors that its financing was lined up, meaning they can begin construction without pre-selling condos, and that Shelbourne didn’t think a hotel would succeed at the 400 N. Lakeshore Drive location, so far from Michigan Avenue.

Mr. Murphy wouldn’t comment on financing, the hotel or how the unit makeup will change with the new designs. He says groundbreaking is planned for the second quarter of next year.

“The building is going forward, there’s no question about that,” Mr. Murphy says. Some observers may question Shelbourne's decision to add condos to the project amid a sluggish downtown condo market. Sales of downtown condos fell 7.6% in the first nine months of the year vs. the same period in 2005, according to Chicago-based consulting firm Appraisal Research Counselors.

Yet condo developers aren't slowing down: They have started marketing 6,100 units this year, eclipsing the 4,700 they put on the market for all of 2005, according to Appraisal Research.

Chicago developer Christopher Carley first proposed the skyscraper in July 2005. Yet Mr. Carley was unable to secure a loan to buy the 2.2-acre development site, so Shelbourne stepped in last July and bought it for about $64 million.

[BVictor1]

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=23109

Calatrava tower to drop spire

Dec. 06, 2006
By Eddie Baeb and Alby Gallun

The Chicago Spire is losing its point.

The developer of the proposed Streeterville tower that would be North America's tallest skyscraper on Friday plans to file design changes with the city eliminating the 430-foot antenna that tops the twisting design by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

Instead, condominium units in the building are to rise all the way to the top at 2,000 feet, says Thomas Murphy, a Chicago attorney and spokesman for the project’s developer, Garrett Kelleher of Dublin, Ireland-based Shelbourne Development Ltd.

“The silhouette will be the same, but there won’t be a spire on top,” Mr. Murphy says. “It’s good for the neighborhood, the city and the building. It makes it a sensible, rational scheme.”

The changes, which Mr. Calatrava presented to neighbors earlier this week, would allow for 1,000 condominiums, up from the current plan that calls for 300 units and a 20-story hotel, according to people briefed on the plans. The building also would move slightly north, farther away from the river, and the pedestal-shaped base would be eliminated and replaced with underground parking.

“There are many positive features and we are in the process of reviewing it,” says Gail Spreen, vice-president of the influential neighborhood group the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, which has yet to take a formal position on the changes.

Ms. Spreen, whose group was shown the plans Tuesday night, says she likes the developer’s plan to build an underground parking garage and include a large plaza along the river. She declines to comment on the new design of the building.

Sources say the developer also told neighbors that its financing was lined up, meaning they can begin construction without pre-selling condos, and that Shelbourne didn’t think a hotel would succeed at the 400 N. Lakeshore Drive location, so far from Michigan Avenue.

Mr. Murphy wouldn’t comment on financing, the hotel or how the unit makeup will change with the new designs. He says groundbreaking is planned for the second quarter of next year.

“The building is going forward, there’s no question about that,” Mr. Murphy says. Some observers may question Shelbourne's decision to add condos to the project amid a sluggish downtown condo market. Sales of downtown condos fell 7.6% in the first nine months of the year vs. the same period in 2005, according to Chicago-based consulting firm Appraisal Research Counselors.

Yet condo developers aren't slowing down: They have started marketing 6,100 units this year, eclipsing the 4,700 they put on the market for all of 2005, according to Appraisal Research.

Chicago developer Christopher Carley first proposed the skyscraper in July 2005. Yet Mr. Carley was unable to secure a loan to buy the 2.2-acre development site, so Shelbourne stepped in last July and bought it for about $64 million.


was just about to ost the article also. There will be more news coming out soon.

[antinimby]

Wow.

Incredible.

Imagine that, living 2000 feet up.

Chicago is just getting bolder and bolder.

[STR]

This is nuts.

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6981/umyeah2er2.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=umyeah2er2.jpg) http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/7978/umyeahyi3.th.jpg (http://img296.imageshack.us/my.php?image=umyeahyi3.jpg)

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0612070161dec07,1,5249446.story?coll=chi-news-hed

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2006-12/26775311.jpg

Major redesign is latest twist in plan for spire
By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published December 7, 2006

The proposed "drill bit" skyscraper has lost its point but gained some heft.
The developer of the twisting spire, which would be the nation's tallest building, has overseen a top-to-bottom redesign that seeks to make the much-ballyhooed project financially feasible, and he will submit his revised plans to the city Friday, people close to the project told the Tribune.
Designed by renowned Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava for Dublin-based developer Garrett Kelleher, the tower no longer has a 400-foot broadcast antenna at its top or a hotel at its base. It is now all condominiums, 1,300 of them. The portion that modern-day cliff dwellers would live in has grown taller and wider, doubling the amount of sellable space to about 1.8 million square feet, said people associated with the project.
"It's all in the service of getting it built," said Kelleher's spokesman, Chicago lawyer Thomas Murphy. "If you're not going to have the broadcast tower, what are you going to have up there?"
Murphy hinted last week that the broadcast tower would be eliminated, saying, "the decision was not to get into a business that we don't know anything about." The Irish-born Kelleher worked in the Chicago real estate market from 1986 to 1996 but has no experience in broadcast towers.
His new plan calls for a 150-story building, with a total of 3 million square feet. That's 35 more floors than in the original design unveiled in 2005 by the project's initial developer, Christopher Carley, and 26 more than in Carley's revised version of the tower. The 1,300 condominium units would nearly triple the number of condominium and hotel units Carley envisioned in both plans. Kelleher assumed control of the project last summer after Carley's drive to build it sputtered.
The cost of the project has been estimated at around $1.2 billion, but developers recently backed off from that figure without providing a new one.
Because of the changes, Kelleher needs to go through a new round of city planning and zoning hearings for the project, which the Chicago Plan Commission approved in March when it consisted of a 150-room hotel and about 300 condos priced from about $600,000 to $5 million. While political approval is not expected to be difficult, it is unclear whether a slowing real estate market will support the colossal venture.
Soil-testing work started
The skyscraper would be built on an empty site along Lake Shore Drive and on the north bank of the Chicago River. On Wednesday, a yellow bulldozer smoothed earth on the site's north side. A sign posted on a chain-link fence bore the name of Kelleher's company, Shelbourne Development Ltd. The bulldozer was doing soil-testing work, which has turned up old foundations, Murphy said.
During a Tuesday interview, Calatrava, whose works include the birdlike addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum and the planned transportation center at the World Trade Center in New York, confirmed that he has signed a contract with Kelleher for full design and construction supervision services.
The architect expressed pleasure that the building's simplified top, in which the tower's twisting curves would culminate in metal fins protruding slightly above the roof, no longer resembles the needlelike spires of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, New York's two great Art Deco towers.
"We don't want to imitate something before," Calatrava said at the interview, held in the offices of the associate architects for the project, Chicago-based Perkins + Will.
"I am learning from Chicago," Zurich-based Calatrava added, using his ever-present sketch pad in an attempt to show how his tower recalled the simple silhouettes of the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building.
Indeed, the skyscraper's form has become less twisty.
In the version approved in March, each floor rotated slightly above the one below it, and the tower made a 360-degree rotation as it rose. In the latest version, the total rotation has been cut to 270 degrees. There is more rotation now at the base and none at the top, Calatrava said.
Floors at the tower's base have become about 35 feet wider, Murphy said, but "the shape is the same" because the building is both taller and wider, he said.
The redesign extends to ground level, where plans for an adjacent six-story parking garage have been scrapped and replaced with seven stories of underground parking. That likely will prove an expensive shift because Kelleher will need to add a concrete "bathtub" to insulate the facility from groundwater.
Kelleher thought the garage's presence would blight the jewel-like tower, Murphy said.
The tower's footprint also has been moved slightly to the north, putting it just north of North Water Street, the small east-west street that slices through the Streeterville neighborhood and stops at the foot of the skyscraper's site.
That shift opens space for a circular drive to the south of the tower, as well as a grand plaza that would punctuate the end of the riverfront promenade leading to Lake Michigan from Michigan Avenue.
A `holistic vision'
And as he revealed with a model of the skyscraper, Calatrava has been laying out plans for the area around it, including pedestrian connections beneath Lake Shore Drive to the planned DuSable Park to the east. The model includes one of his signature cable-supported bridges, which would form a link in the lakefront bike path and swing open to allow boats to pass.
"This is a more holistic vision," Calatrava said.
Basic aspects of the design remain unchanged. The tower still would have a central core of concrete, ringed by concrete columns and floor space cantilevering outward from them. Its exterior wall would be made of glass and a still-to-be-determined metal to make the tower look light and reflective in contrast to the black skyline brackets of Sears and the Hancock.
But to accommodate the shift to all condominiums, Calatrava included four banks of elevators within the tower's circular core, one each for low-rise, middle low-rise, middle high-rise and high-rise units, respectively.
The plan remains to break ground in the second quarter of 2007, Murphy said.
----------
bkamin@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

[lofter1]

Major redesign is latest twist in plan for spire

The proposed "drill bit" skyscraper has lost its point but gained some heft.

... the tower no longer has a 400-foot broadcast antenna at its top or a hotel at its base.

...The architect expressed pleasure that the building's simplified top, in which the tower's twisting curves would culminate in metal fins protruding slightly above the roof, no longer resembles the needlelike spires of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, New York's two great Art Deco towers.

"We don't want to imitate something before," Calatrava said at the interview, held in the offices of the associate architects for the project, Chicago-based Perkins + Will.

"I am learning from Chicago," Zurich-based Calatrava added, using his ever-present sketch pad in an attempt to show how his tower recalled the simple silhouettes of the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building.

... In the latest version, the total rotation has been cut to 270 degrees. There is more rotation now at the base and none at the top, Calatrava said.

Good move to lose the really awkward base as previously proposed.

But the tower has lost a lot of its poetry -- the loss of the spire renders another stumpy top, ala NYC's Hearst tower.

What is it about Chicago that they like their tallest buildings to have crew cuts?

[ASchwarz]

Unless the developer doesn't care about profits, this will never be built. A tower of this height makes zero financial sense. Construction costs for such a tower are mind-boggling and would require sales prices easily three times higher than other Chicago superluxury product (Trump, for instance).

The fact that it is being proposed in Chicago, a city with fairly low sales prices and an unusually large glut of luxury construction, makes it even more unrealistic.

If this were proposed in slave labor Dubai I could see it happening but not in the U.S.

[TREPYE]

Unless the developer doesn't care about profits, this will never be built. A tower of this height makes zero financial sense. Construction costs for such a tower are mind-boggling and would require sales prices easily three times higher than other Chicago superluxury product (Trump, for instance).

The fact that it is being proposed in Chicago, a city with fairly low sales prices and an unusually large glut of luxury construction, makes it even more unrealistic.

If this were proposed in slave labor Dubai I could see it happening but not in the U.S.

There is a certain terminology for what Kelleher is doing which is egregiously devoid in NYC development projects. Risk taking. Kudos to him for having some balls.

[ASchwarz]

I applaud the risk-taking and certainly wish we had more of that in NYC.

At the same time, I will be floored if he can sell 3 million square feet(!) in 1,300 condominum units (!!), all at prices much higher than have ever been achieved in Chicago and coinciding with record new supply and a dramatically slower market.

[Derek2k3]

Kudos to Chicago, now without the spire it looks a lot like my skyscraper design project...mine is far more elegant of course lol.

[Jake]

I just hope they honor the tradition and put up a dual antenna on top :)

I also have to add to the praise for balls, lol, something we here in new york are obviously lacking.

[TREPYE]

While it is really cool and encouraging that they are pushing the roof height to an incredible 2000 ft, I believe that some of this towers aesthetic quality was lost with the removal of the spire. A more proper finish is needed for this almost-perfect design.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2006-12/26775311.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/07/26/arts/27tall.jpg

[lofter1]

... I believe that some of this towers aesthetic quality was lost with the removal of the spire.

Agreed -- the poetry is gone.

[lbjefferies]

At least the new design draws one's eyes away from the butt ugly Sears Tower.

[BVictor1]

Close-up renderings

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/451/csuporce1.jpg
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1039/csupua5.jpg

[lofter1]

The window-washing contraption for this one should prove to be an interesting piece of engineering ...

[ablarc]

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/451/csuporce1.jpg
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1039/csupua5.jpg
Reptilian.

[lofter1]

millipedian ...

http://www.swva.net/fred1st/millipede.jpg

[kz1000ps]

Reptilian.

Exactly! All I can think of when looking at those pictures is my friend's red-tailed boa. Looks great.

[ablarc]

Nearly all Calatrava's buildings are based on animals. He's a representational architect. (Though he'd hotly deny it!)

[antinimby]

Call it what you want, it is simply stunning!

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1039/csupua5.jpg

[ablarc]

... it is simply stunning!
Animals generally are. Take a close look at your seashell collection. Or go the Castle in Central Park and check out the frog skeleton.

You'll find Calatrava in both places.

[Jake]

The units in this thing must be incredible.

I wonder if the whole curve is just one unit, that's gotta be an amazing room if that's the case.

Regardless of what people might say about this design I would REALLY love to live in this building, perhaps more than in any other design I've recently seen.

[lbjefferies]

Nearly all Calatrava's buildings are based on animals. He's a representational architect. (Though he'd hotly deny it!)

The same way O'Keefe hotly denied her paintings of flowers had anything to do with feminine genitalia.

I think its a fine looking rendering. It certainly fits in with the Chicago boxes better than than Calatrava's last effort. It had much more beauty and grace, but lets face it, Chi-town is not a city of beauty or grace. Even the women in Chicago are burly and ugly. Of course the Eiffel Tower stuck out like a sore thumb, and that seemed to work out okay.

[spyguy999]

Chi-town is not a city of beauty or grace. Even the women in Chicago are burly and ugly.

Anything else you'd like to add? :p

[malec]

I wonder how the nimbys will react now that there are 3 or 4 times as many units

[MidtownGuy]

it takes my breath away...the way each arc of windows peel away from the "seam" is sublime.
Calatrava is my favorite living architect. Why not represent nature, her forms are imminently worthy.

[Jake]

Shouldn't we say GOD is the architect?!

haha :p:D

[ablarc]

it takes my breath away...the way each arc of windows peel away from the "seam" is sublime.
Agreed.

Calatrava is my favorite living architect.
Right up there with Gehry. Soon to be the champ.

Why not represent nature, her forms are imminently worthy.
Indeed.

[malec]

From ground up it's absolutely stunning, and love those corners too. I just don't think the top works well when viewing from far away

[Ed007Toronto]

Skyline wise I think this tower is a mistake. Beautiful as it is it is too tall. It will diminish the impact of the rest of the skyline. That's an issue here in Toronto where the tall CN Tower makes the rest of the skyline seem shorter than it really is.

[MidtownGuy]

Perhaps the top does still need some finessing. Something in between the original very elongated spire and the current truncation.

[Jasonik]

I bet the top has some double height penthouse units that won't work structurally with the twist.

[TREPYE]

Perhaps the top does still need some finessing.

Yeah man, its like the thing went all the way up to 2000' to say nothing at all. As someone previosly mentioned, that i needs to be dotted specially at that height.

[BVictor1]

Skyline wise I think this tower is a mistake. Beautiful as it is it is too tall. It will diminish the impact of the rest of the skyline. That's an issue here in Toronto where the tall CN Tower makes the rest of the skyline seem shorter than it really is.

Well then you build other tall building throughout the skyline so that it's not all alone, and it will no longer seem out of place. What is it with people saying that it's too tall and out of place? If you go back and look at recently completed photos of the Sears Tower, Hancock or the World Trade Center, you'll see that all of them dominated their patches of sky when they were completed, but eventually the area and sky around them eventually fill up.

[antinimby]

What about a water tower?

Shouldn't one that is going to be able to serve this many units going to be huge?

And where are they going to put it?

[ablarc]

Skyline wise I think this tower is a mistake. Beautiful as it is it is too tall. It will diminish the impact of the rest of the skyline. That's an issue here in Toronto where the tall CN Tower makes the rest of the skyline seem shorter than it really is.
Old WTC did that in NY.

[spyguy999]

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/nance/182705,CST-FIN-spire22.article

Revised design puts spire in better light
Slimmed-down version topped by a beacon



December 22, 2006
BY KEVIN NANCE (knance@suntimes.com) Architecture Critic

Only two weeks after a firestorm of criticism of his recently unveiled redesign for a supertall condo tower on the lakefront near Navy Pier, architect Santiago Calatrava has floated a new version that received far more positive reviews.

The 2,000-foot-tall structure's latest design -- previewed by city officials, community groups and some members of the local architecture community at a series of private meetings this week -- restores much of the tapering, spiraling form of the original models, according to several people who attended. Instead of an antenna/spire, which had been lopped off in the bulkier and largely unpopular design of early December, the new version features a spire-like shaft of light shooting up into the night sky.


The project's spokeswoman, Kim Metcalfe, said models and renderings of the new design are not being released publicly. But several people who have seen them have been impressed.


"It's the best of all the schemes so far, for sure, architecturally and from an urban design standpoint," said OWP/P Architects President John M. Syvertsen. "It tapers almost as it did in the original scheme -- almost to a point, in fact. The antenna becomes occupied space, but it does complete the form of the building. It's excellent."


Lynn Osmond, president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, agreed.


"It's very exciting and very slender at the top," she said. "I think all the architects [present at a meeting at Perkins + Will, a Chicago firm handling some aspects of the project] were impressed with the way he's fine-tuned it. It's a wonderful statement for the city."


The architect and representatives of his new developer, Garrett Kelleher of Ireland, also met with members of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, which had opposed the previous design for the 1,300-unit building, which they viewed as potentially contributing to traffic congestion in the neighborhood.


SOAR President Gail Spreen said the group won't arrive at an official position until it can meet late next week, but early reaction to at least some of the new refinements was encouraging. "Some of the things, we felt were positive changes," she said.


What isn't yet clear is the reaction of Mayor Daley, who is known for his love of spires. City spokeswoman Connie Buscemi confirmed that administration officials have seen Calatrava's latest plans but are still developing a response. "We have looked at it conceptually, but we need to sit down with the development team and take a closer look."


The new design will eventually be presented to the Chicago Plan Commission in the new year, but no date has been set.

[Jake]

I am so fed up with every building that claims to have "light coming out of its roof" and not one of them ever does.

If you look at the pictures from the 1920s with pictures of then proposed skyscrapers all of them had lighthouse-bright beacons and all were lit and colorful.

[antinimby]

This is an incredibly tall building, wouldn't the FAA have a say in all this?

Midway is not that far away.

[BVictor1]

This is an incredibly tall building, wouldn't the FAA have a say in all this?

Midway is not that far away.


There would be no problem at all. Technically this building was approved last year under the original developer. The reason it has to be re-approved is because they've added more units. The height of the overall structure hasn't changed, it's still 2,000' feet to the tip, as the original one was.


Here's an article from yesterdays Chicago Tribune 12/23/06

Controversial skyscraper plan gets new look

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published December 21, 2006, 3:05 PM CST

Addressing criticism sparked by the latest plan for a 2,000-foot-tall, twisting skyscraper along Chicago's lakefront, the project's developer and architect have quietly shopped an alternative version to Mayor Richard M. Daley, community groups and leaders of the city's architecture community, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The alternative design has a tapering, tip-like summit instead of the nearly-flat dome in the proposal that was unveiled in early December and attracted a volley of criticism, people at the meetings said. They added that the tower's top has regained some of the whirring, twisting look that led Chicagoans to affectionately dub the proposed skyscraper "The Drill Bit." And now, they said, a thin shaft of light would shoot upwards from the tower at night, extending its presence into the sky.

People who attended the meetings also said that the tower's architect, Zurich-based Santiago Calatrava, made a presentation showing that the skyscraper would be far more slender than comparable supertall buildings such as Sears Tower. The move apparently was aimed at rebutting the view that the proposed tower has grown too bulky because Dublin-based developer Garrett Kelleher wants to nearly triple the number of units.

The skyscraper would be the nation's tallest building, eclipsing both the current title-holder, the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, and the under-construction, 1,776-foot Freedom Tower in New York, scheduled for completion in 2011.

At least some in attendance found the latest version of the 160-story luxury condominium tower, which would be built at a now-empty site on the Chicago River's north bank at Lake Shore Drive, a significant improvement. "It's like nothing else in North America," said Donna Robertson, dean of the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology. "It's innovative. It puts Chicago on the map."

Daley also has been shown the alternative version of the tower, which is called "Version D," a spokeswoman for the developer said. It is not known how Daley, who is intensely interested in architecture, reacted. In 2005, the mayor ordered flamboyant New York developer Donald Trump to put a spire on top of his 92-story hotel and condominium tower now being constructed alongside the landmark Wrigley Building.

Kelleher filed his proposal with the city Dec. 8 and immediately encountered resistance, with many observers saying the design was far less attractive than the plans for the skyscraper unveiled in July 2005 and March 2006 by the project's previous developer, Christopher Carley of Chicago. Carley's versions were topped by a broadcast tower that also served as a spire, but Kelleher eliminated it, along with a hotel that Carley wanted to place on the tower's lower floors.

An influential community group, the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR), expressed disappointment with the design and the proposed increase in the number of units, which it predicted would aggravate traffic congestion in the already-clogged area west of Navy Pier.

And Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), in whose ward the project would be built, said he was concerned about the project's size and its effect on traffic, adding a political obstacle to the economic hurdles the mega-tower already faces.

The cost of the project once was estimated at $1.2 billion, but Kelleher's Shelbourne Development has not provided an updated figure. Kelleher assumed control of the project last summer after Carley's drive to build it faltered.

The groups shown the alternative version of the project include SOAR, the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects, according to people familiar with the meetings. Several of the groups saw the plans Wednesday in the offices of the associate architects for the project, Chicago-based Perkins + Will.

In addition, the Illinois Institute of Technology on Tuesday hosted a dinner party at which Calatrava and Kelleher presented the design to leading figures in the city's design community. Among those attending the event -- held in Crown Hall, master modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's renowned temple of steel and glass -- were Joseph Rosa, the Art Institute of Chicago's curator of architecture and design, and Ed Uhlir, the design director for Millennium Park, people familiar with the event said.

At the IIT meeting, people who attended say, the project's backers argued that the elimination of the hotel would lessen, rather than aggravate, traffic congestion. Without the hotel, fewer taxicabs would head to the tower, some present at the meeting said. In addition, they said, many of tower's residents are expected to be affluent residents who would not live in Chicago during the winter months, further reducing the tower's effect on congestion.

The flurry of meetings is a prelude to a still-to-be-scheduled hearing before the Chicago Plan Commission that could be held as early as January. Constance Buscemi, a planning department spokeswoman, said city officials "still need to meet with the development team and look at the design in more detail." The city's transportation department is also scrutinizing the plans.

Kelleher wants to break ground by June.


THIS IS NOT THE "OFFICIAL RENDERING", one of the forumers over at Skyscraperpage reworked the design to what's been reported, and I must say that it is very close to the real thing.

I don't know when the official renderings will be released, but when they are, they will be posted here.

http://www.boca-del-mar.com/publish/csthin4.jpg

[lofter1]

...the tower's top has regained some of the whirring, twisting look that led Chicagoans
to affectionately dub the proposed skyscraper "The Drill Bit."

Better than the flat top, and aptly dubbed ...

http://images.lowes.com/product/000346/000346313512.jpg

[spyguy999]

Latest version shown during a meeting at IIT last month
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5615/dsc04621778228wq5.jpg

A little editing to show how the building twists now
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6132/csvdps3.jpg

[antinimby]

What's the size of the footprint?

I would think it'll be bigger than even Sears.

[BVictor1]

What's the size of the footprint?

I would think it'll be bigger than even Sears.

No, it's a little more than half the size.

The footprint for Sears is roughly 50,625 sq feet

The footprint for Chicago Spire is roughly 25,000 - 27,000 sq feet.

I'm actually supposed to be getting more accurate numbers tomorrow.

[BVictor1]

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainmen...arch16.article (http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/nance/212152,CST-FTR-arch16.article)

Latest Calatrava talk a fishy business at best

January 16, 2007

The unmistakable aroma of seafood wafted through Monday night's meeting of the Grant Park Conservancy, and it wasn't of the gourmet variety.
The odor emanated from the presentation by Irish developer Garrett Kelleher and members of his team on the proposed Santiago Calatrava-designed condo tower on the Chicago lakefront near Navy Pier. Heavily attended on a snowy weekday night (and on a holiday to boot), the meeting had been advertised as an opportunity to view the latest design scheme for the 150-story Chicago Spire, which at 2,000 feet would top out as the nation's tallest building. For his own inscrutable reasons, however, Kelleher apparently elected not to deliver.

Instead, he served up a meal that had been cooked at least six weeks ago. The design scheme that he and Bruce Toman (of the Chicago firm of Perkins + Will, which is handling the project locally) was virtually identical to Calatrava's widely criticized revision of early December.

Monday night's scheme lacked several key elements of a still more recent (and more popular) revision floated by the celebrated Spanish architect and Kelleher at private meetings the week of Dec. 18.

In that version, the tower's elegantly twisting shape (whose illusion of undulant movement was slowed from a 360-degree turn to about 270 degrees) had been brought closer to the original scheme. The tower's initially tapering form (which had given way to a fatter shaft with a flat top) was partially restored, and the spire itself, which Kelleher had ordered removed as financially unfeasible, was replaced by a spirelike light shooting up into the night sky.

Monday night: A 270-degree twist. No restored tapering on the way up. No light.

Asked to explain these seeming omissions from what Toman described as the "current" design, Kelleher scoffed: "A lot of things have been reported."

Yes, they have, and unless dozens of Chicago's most observant citizens are suffering from a mass hallucination, the design we saw Monday was not the design they saw three weeks ago. And if this week's design is indeed the latest one, it seems the pre-Christmas meal that the developer and architect served their invited guests was raw at best.

What is Kelleher playing at? Yes, as Toman repeated more than once, the building's design is unfinished and will continue to evolve. But what is the actual state of the design right now? Is it Version 3, which we saw Monday night, or Version 4, which others saw just before Christmas? It's a simple question. It's also a pressing one, given Kelleher's startling assertion that he's ordering caissons for the site "within weeks," even though city planning officials aren't close to granting approval.

Other questions remained unanswered. How many units will the tower contain? Somewhere between 1,000 and 1,350, Kelleher said -- a wide range of possibilities, to say the least. How much will the building cost to build? He couldn't say, or wouldn't. How much will the condos cost per square foot? No idea.

This isn't exactly being forthright with the public, which has every right to be closely informed about the progress of a building that would radically alter the city's skyline forever. It smells, and you know of what.

In striking contrast to the cloak of confusion and (perhaps) misdirection that has fallen over the Calatrava project like a shroud, Solomon Cordwell Buenz's presentation at the same meeting -- about its new Millennium Park Plaza, a new 40-story, curtain-walled residential tower on the northwest corner of Randolph and Michigan, was a breath of fresh air. It's a sleekly modernist, modestly handsome project that will fit its site and its city like a glove, and it's likely to benefit immeasurably from the easy straightforwardness of its lead designer, John Lahey, who answered every question he was asked. What a concept.

knance@suntimes.com (knance@suntimes.com)

[BVictor1]

Spire developer releases latest drawings
New twist and turns for tallest building

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published January 21, 2007


Under fire for withholding the latest design for a twisting lakefront tower from the public, the project's developer has relented and released to the Tribune his new vision for the proposed 2,000-foot skyscraper, which would be the nation's tallest building.

A computer rendering pictures the tower with a tapering, conelike top rather than the blunt summit that was shown in early December and drew a thumbs-down from critics and the public. While details of the design by Zurich-based architect Santiago Calatrava are sure to change, the developer, Dublin-based Garrett Kelleher, appears to have made a firm choice on its broad outlines.


His decision to release the rendering and Calatrava's conceptual sketches for the project seeks to quell controversy about his obligation to fully inform the public about the shape of a project that would dramatically remake Chicago's skyline. It would rise 550 feet higher than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, now the tallest building in the U.S., and would be nearly twice as tall as the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center.

"The whole thing is evolving," Kelleher said.

"We are getting closer and closer to the definite shape," Calatrava said.

Called the Chicago Spire, the skyscraper would rise on a now-vacant site west of Lake Shore Drive across from Navy Pier. Last summer, Kelleher assumed control of the project from its original developer, Chicago's Christopher Carley. Carley had proposed a stack of hotel rooms and condominiums topped by a 400-foot broadcast tower.

Kelleher eliminated the hotel and broadcast tower and nearly tripled the overall number of units to 1,300, all condominiums, in an attempt to make the project economically feasible. But Calatrava's first stab at dealing with these economic mandates flopped and was quickly dubbed "Twizzler Tower" for its resemblance to a piece of the red licorice.

The new images show that his design is poised to regain the spectacular whirring energy that captivated the public when Carley announced the high-rise in 2005. They also provide a glimpse of Calatrava's vision for the skyscraper's lobby, which would be a soaring, cathedral-like space, five stories tall and framed by arching vaults of concrete.

More broadly, the drawings open a window onto Calatrava's creative process, which draws inspiration from a variety of sources--nature and the human body, as well as past architectural masterpieces such as the churches of 17th Century Baroque architect Franceso Borromini.

The skeptics

Many have expressed skepticism that Kelleher will ever amass the funds needed to build the 150-story skyscraper. The developer has not announced an overall price for the building. Nor has he indicated that he has buyers signed up, as developers of such projects typically do. The tower still requires city approval and Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), in whose ward the skyscraper would be built, has expressed concerns about traffic congestion and density.

But Kelleher has a hive of architects, structural engineers and other consultants at work on the 36th floor of 330 North Wabash, a black slab that overlooks the slowly growing superstructure of Donald Trump's 92-story hotel-condominium tower along the Chicago River. Skeptics also dismissed Trump's project, but the flamboyant New York developer proved them wrong, aided by a windfall of publicity from his reality TV series, "The Apprentice."

During an interview Tuesday night, Calatrava illustrated his design ideas for the Chicago Spire with his ever-present sketchpad. He also pulled a small brown snail shell out of his pocket and placed it on a conference table, indicating how the shell's graceful, rotating forms may inspire his design for the tower's summit.

"We are trying to give a kind of beautiful significance to the [skyscraper], as it is in nature," he said.

At the end of the session, the Tribune asked Kelleher to make Calatrava's sketches available so the public could see them.

The developer consented and Calatrava, one of the only architects in a computer-obsessed world who travels with a paintbrush and a palette of watercolors, proceeded to color the sketches in shades of yellow, red, blue and green. The drawings were returned to Kelleher on Wednesday.

The issue of the public's right to be informed about the design came to a head Monday night at a public meeting of the Grant Park Advisory Council, an influential citizens board.

Although the Chicago Spire would be built several blocks north of Grant Park, Kelleher was invited to speak at the meeting. The advisory council advertised Kelleher's appearance as a chance to see the "latest design" of the Chicago Spire.

The `Twizzler'

Instead, Kelleher showed the widely panned version of the plan he made public in early December: a beefed-up, nearly flat-topped version of the high-rise, whose upper floors had far less twist than in the original design.

At the meeting, the Tribune asked Kelleher why he was not showing the public the revised, tapering version of the skyscraper that he and Calatrava privately shopped to citizens groups and leaders of Chicago's design community in late December.

Kelleher insisted he was presenting that version.


Chicago's architecture critics didn't buy it.

"This isn't exactly being forthright with the public, which has every right to be closely informed about the progress of a building that would radically alter the city's skyline forever. It smells, and you know of what," Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Kevin Nance wrote Tuesday.

Made aware he was facing a credibility problem, Kelleher offered a meeting Tuesday night with himself and Calatrava.

At the session, the architect confirmed with the swift strokes of his pen that he and the developer have been considering several versions of the tower.

One alternative had a spire that would have stretched the 150-story skyscraper's height to 2,150 feet--nearly 500 feet taller than the current world's tallest building in Taipei, Taiwan. However, it was looked at only for study and was eliminated, Kelleher said.

All the versions could accommodate anywhere from 1,000 to 1,350 condominium units, Kelleher said, adding that the exact number hasn't been determined.

The latest version is the plan shown privately in late December. It would rotate 360 degrees from ground to summit instead of the 270-degree twist in the "Twizzler" proposal. To achieve the illusion of movement, each floor of the skyscraper would rotate slightly over the one beneath it.

Calatrava also illustrated how the skyscraper's lobby would have highly transparent, cable-supported glass walls and steel-reinforced concrete vaults that would form cathedral-like interior spaces. Outside, the tower's structural columns would join to form W-shaped clusters. They would frame a tall exterior arcade.

While the lobby might not be open to the public for security or privacy reasons, pedestrians walking the exterior arcade could look in. "It's a beautiful space that you can enjoy inside. But you can also enjoy it from outside," Calatrava said.

Kelleher, who wants to break ground on the project by the end of June, said at the Grant Park Advisory Council meeting that he is ready to order caissons even though the skyscraper has not yet received formal city approval. Public hearings are likely to be held in March, according to people close to the project.

---

bkamin@tribune.com (bkamin@tribune.com)

[BVictor1]

This is the most recent version of the design.

Here is a video link that has Blair Kamin showing the new version... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...l=chi-news-hed (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...l=chi-news-hed)

Posted by Spyguy in the Skyscraperpage forum..

Screenshots of the most important images: From the Chicago Tribune
http://img327.imageshack.us/img327/2632/cs12sl.jpg
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/8349/cs21kx.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/9799/cs33mj.jpg
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2153/cs47bh.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/9864/cs50nw.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7997/cs65gh.jpg
http://img327.imageshack.us/img327/9622/cs72ym.jpg

[BVictor1]

An interesting comparison from UberAlles on the Skyscraperpage forum.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/9799/cs33mj.jpg

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec01/images/911_flag.jpg

[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0701210477jan21,1,3035291.story?coll=chi-news-hed

CRITIQUE

New plan sees sizzle in skyline

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published January 21, 2007


A skyscraper is an unlikely mix of ruthless capitalism and aesthetic idealism. The New York architect Cass Gilbert once called it "a machine that makes the land pay." Yet Louis Sullivan, Chicago's 19th Century poet of the skyscraper, sought to endow this money-grubbing pile with the same spiritual values as Europe's grandest cathedrals. The skyscraper, he said famously, should be a "proud and soaring thing."

Santiago Calatrava's latest design for the twisting, 2,000-foot Chicago Spire, which the project's developer has released in the face of controversy about his obligation to inform the public about a tower that would reshape Chicago's skyline, navigates these conflicting poles far more deftly than a disappointing version of the skyscraper unveiled in early December.

That design, which was dubbed "Twizzler Tower" for its resemblance to the red licorice, unsuccessfully grappled with Dublin-based developer Garrett Kelleher's mandate to eliminate a spirelike broadcast tower and nearly triple the building's number of units to make the 150-story condominium skyscraper economically feasible. With its buzz-cut top and lack of rotation in its upper stories, the design conspicuously lacked the whirring energy of Calatrava's original plan, introduced in 2005.

The new version restores the project's earlier spontaneity, although, as Calatrava is quick to point out, it has almost precisely the same underlying structure as the December version--a cylindrical concrete core ringed by interior columns and a scalloped perimeter that would rotate as the tower rises. What has changed, however, is the way Calatrava has handled the developer's mandate for more condominiums and no broadcast tower. He transforms it into skyline sizzle.

Again making a full 360-degree rotation, unlike the Twizzler's 270 degrees, his latest version would whirl into the sky with the same exuberant energy as the beloved, romantic skyscrapers of the 1920s. Yet the design wisely forgoes the nostalgia of postmodern, Chrysler Building wannabes such as Chicago's Two Prudential Plaza. It would be a single, organic piece of skyline sculpture rather than an object with a spike stuck atop it--a supersize drill bit for a city that has fallen in love with a supersize Bean.

The spiral has always expressed human aspiration, and it serves Calatrava well here, setting his design apart from Sears Tower and the sober, flat-topped, utilitarian towers of the mid-20th Century. They were built for a meat-and-potatoes Chicago. This is a different skyscraper for a different city, a city that plays as well as works, a city where the vast majority of new high-rises are places to live, not places to work. With Calatrava drawing inspiration for the tower's top from a light brown snail shell--its softly coiling shape provides a perfect model for the skyscraper's top--the possibility of an extraordinary skyline silhouette is now within reach.

There are caveats, of course, and they go beyond the questions of density, traffic congestion and the threat of terrorism that a project of this scale inevitably must face.

As Calatrava and Kelleher acknowledge, the tower remains a work in progress. Calatrava is fully aware that he needs to endow its exterior with the kind of rich, formal complexity that uplifts a much-smaller rotating skyscraper, Frank Lloyd Wright's pinwheeling Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla., of 1956. But he shows every sign of wanting to do much more than an architectural one-liner, especially in his drawings for the tower's lobby. They reveal the possibility for thrilling structural drama, both inside the skyscraper and outside.

This project remains surrounded by questions, none more pressing than whether Kelleher will be able to come up with the funds to build it. But if he can--and if Calatrava continues to gracefully develop a design concept that is now back on track--this could be Chicago's finest supertall building since the mighty John Hancock Center.

----------

bkamin@tribune.com (bkamin@tribune.com)

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

[Citytect]

Off-topic, but is there a WNY equivalent for Chicago?

[spyguy999]

Off-topic, but is there a WNY equivalent for Chicago?

No, not really.

[BVictor1]

Here's a better rendering

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/Chicago_Spire.jpg

[BVictor1]

Same rendering but edited by Spyguy to be more accurate scale.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2618/csreal2vp.jpg

[antinimby]

That's hot!

[ablarc]

What is that fishing-net thing at the bridge where the river meets the lake?

Skyline looks great, btw, and so does Calatrava's contribution.

[ryeler]

anyone have any picks with the trump in the background? to compare

[evil_synth]

To be perfectly honest, I think this building looks like a giant icicle sticking out of the ground. It looks horrible. I personally don't think it looks like a skyscraper at all, but some ugly form of modern art.

Then again, its a matter of opinion.

[MidtownGuy]

It's beautiful. Kiss the future.

[antinimby]

^ Exactly, evil_synth seems to have been raised to believe that skyscrapers have to have four walls that goes straight up.

[Jake]

It's too short!


hehe, just kidding :p

[ablarc]

^ Exactly, evil_synth seems to have been raised to believe that skyscrapers have to have four walls that goes straight up.
Oh, I can see his point. It looks like a giant representation of some thing besides a building --a drill bit, for example. Reminds me of Gehry's giant binoculars in California.

Oldenburgian.

[evil_synth]

I just like more classic buildings. Like I said, this building reminds me too much of a modern statue or some sort of obelisk, curves are not my fancy on such a large scale. I wouldn't mind a shorter version (~500 feet).

It looks somewhat incomplete... perhaps an actual building under it would complete it.. oh.. wait.. I guess its called Chicago Spire for a reason.

[MidtownGuy]

Skyscrapers in the 21st century are bound to flirt with these organic forms
as methods of realizing them finally become available. Forms that are organic like this will reinvigorate skylines all around the world in the coming years. I see this as being very different from the binocular building because this form is natural and mathematical like a seashell. I think it's perfect by the water. Does the sail-like bridge at it's base exist already or is it part of the project?

[ablarc]

I see this as being very different from the binocular building because this form is natural and mathematical like a seashell.
True enough, but you can still see it as representational of something that is mathematical in form, such as a drill bit or a fossil shell. Calatrava is often representational; certainly the WTC station is that.

[MidtownGuy]

Yes. I guess I was trying to get at the reason why I like Calatrava's brand of representation. He artfully chooses forms that make sense somehow.
The wings of a bird at a transportation node. The sail shape on a bridge. Vertebrae and skeletal structures as habitat. I love the vaulting tree forms within the BCE galleria in Toronto that remind me of Literary Walk in Central Park. This man is a poet.

[ablarc]

This man is a poet.
Yup.

Poetry comes out especially fine when it's found in the soul of an engineer. Gustave Eiffel.





Off topic: our newest member is MidtownGirl. Any relation?

[ablarc]

The wings of a bird at a transportation node.
Maybe also a soul taking flight.

And it's also a stegosaurus.

Like the duck-rabbit, it's two animals at the same time.

[Alonzo-ny]

Not sure i like how the building plonks down on the ground

[MidtownGuy]

MidtownGirl? :) Haven't "met" her yet.

[ManhattanKnight]

What is that fishing-net thing at the bridge where the river meets the lake?



It appears to be a new cable-stay bridge spanning the river just to the east of the existing Lake Shore Drive Bridge:

The existing bridge

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2567/chicagoriverbridge9ac.jpg


http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/982/chicagolsdrivebridge0qv.jpg

The new bridge

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8404/chicagospire3zw.jpg

Is this for vehicles or pedestrians? How can it be moved for the passage of tall ships?

[BVictor1]

What is that fishing-net thing at the bridge where the river meets the lake?

Skyline looks great, btw, and so does Calatrava's contribution.

Calatrava designed a pedestrian bridge across the river. It's currently not a part of the project, just visionary. We all want it built of course.


anyone have any picks with the trump in the background? to compare


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/149/369235596_17d19e9fa2_o.jpg

[BVictor1]

It appears to be a new cable-stay bridge spanning the river just to the east of the existing Lake Shore Drive Bridge:

The existing bridge

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2567/chicagoriverbridge9ac.jpg


http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/982/chicagolsdrivebridge0qv.jpg

The new bridge

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8404/chicagospire3zw.jpg

Is this for vehicles or pedestrians? How can it be moved for the passage of tall ships?

It will be for bikers, joggers and bladers. It will swind on that main pylon/support that you see.