Aqua could be Chicago's most sensuous skyscraperBy Blair Kamin Architect Jeanne Gang, one of the city's rising design stars, has shaped a dazzling 83-story residential tower that looks like a hipper version of Bertrand Goldberg's twin corncobs at Marina City. Rippling like waves beyond the tower's glass face, its undulating concrete balconies promise to give this city of sober right angles its most sensuous, curvaceous skyscraper yet. The $300 million tower is called Aqua, not because it will be painted that color, but because Gang and the marketing people agreed that the name evokes both the fluidity of the building's form and its lakefront location. The tower is to be built along Upper Columbus Drive, on the site of the old golf course where the big Lakeshore East development is rising west of Lake Shore Drive and south of the Chicago River. As fresh conceptually as it is visually, Aqua marks a welcome departure from the mediocrity of most new downtown high-rises, including those at Lakeshore East. Pending the wrap-up of financing arrangements, final city approvals and the requisite number of advance sales, Loewenberg is scheduled to break ground on Aqua in October. The target completion date is 2009. The tower, which will sit atop a broad, two-story base with ground-level shops, is to contain a hotel, rental apartments, condominiums and penthouses. While its inner structure and basic shape -- an extruded rectangle supported by a concrete core and columns -- is entirely conventional, its outward appearance is anything but. Gang, who heads the firm Studio/Gang/Architects, based her design on the idea of making "bumps" in the building's exterior. Why? Simple: By extending balconies as much as 12 feet beyond Aqua's glass walls, she strives to give its inhabitants, particularly those in the tower's middle and lower sections, views that otherwise would be blocked by the dense forest of surrounding high-rises. People who live about halfway up Aqua's east side, for example, not only will get the expected lake panorama. They'll also be able to look southward and snag an unexpected view of Frank Gehry's snaking BP Bridge in Millennium Park. The bumps also were tweaked to provide appropriate sun-shading (those on the south are deeper than those on the north) and to accommodate living patterns. Gang placed the balconies outside living rooms rather than bedrooms, for example. It's what Gang did with the bumps, however, that offers the tantalizing possibility that her tower will be a work of art. She transformed them into a series of curving motifs that sweep up the sides of the tower like the voluptuous folds of drapery in an ancient Greek sculpture. One of these motifs is roughly S-shaped, curving like an ocean wave. Another bulges from thin to thick to thin, suggesting the moundlike shape of an ocean swell. While it's unclear if Aqua will live up to this standard, it can be stated with certainty that the tower represents a computer-age update of Goldberg's mid-20th Century masterpiece at Marina City. Goldberg repeated that flower petal pattern on all of his apartment floors to keep the design economical. At Aqua, at least in theory, the computer will allow the perimeter of every floor to be different without busting the budget. To create the balconies, contractors will use a global positioning system to shape the formwork for the light gray (not aqua) concrete. (There will be a hint of aqua, however, in the blue-green tint of the tower's windows.) As enticing as all this sounds, Aqua cannot be evaluated as an isolated work of architectural sculpture. It will be the signature statement for one of the largest parcels being developed in an American downtown, a 28-acre city within a city that is growing, somewhat oddly, at the bottom of a pit formed by the surrounding network of triple-deck streets. The tower also will be rising to the east of Illinois Center and high-rises such as the Aon Center and Two Prudential Plaza. The question is whether Lakeshore East will become integrated with the rest of the city or isolated from it. A good blend Fortunately, Gang's design does more integrating than isolating. She shifts the tower's base slightly southward from the location suggested by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's master plan for Lakeshore East. That enabled her to create a pedestrian passageway that will effectively extend Lake Street eastward, linking the Loop and Lakeshore East. A sculpted switchback stair will lead from Upper Columbus to Lakeshore East's handsome contemporary park and its dynamic curving pathways. The park's designer is Houston-based landscape architect James Burnett. Still, city planners need to look hard at whether Gang's tower would loom over Upper Columbus. It's nearly 828 feet tall, with very little setback. She and Loewenberg will be asking city planners to let them build more than 100 feet taller than the maximum height recommended in the master plan. As the project progresses, there inevitably will be tensions between art and economics. If art wins, Chicago is in for a striking tower -- one that represents a firm break from timid postmodernism and is every bit as exciting as Santiago Calatrava's drill bit-shaped, but still-unfinanced, Fordham Spire. Just keep holding your breath and hoping. Sixth high-rise to roll in as the TidesMarch 1, 2006 BY DAVID ROEDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST The $4 billion Lakeshore East development north of Grant Park is entering the next stage of its growth. In about 30 days, developers expect to break ground on the complex's sixth high-rise. Called the Tides, the 52-story building is designed by James Loewenberg, architect and partner in Lakeshore East with Joel Carlins. With 608 apartments, the Tides will arise at the northwest corner of Field Drive and East South Water just north of the 6-acre park that serves as the development's centerpiece. The building furthers the developers' goal of mixing rental and for-sale housing. Loewenberg said the projected monthly rents, from about $1,400 for a studio to $2,800 for a two-bedroom, will be similar to what the owners get for the Shoreham, a tower immediately east of the Tides. The Shoreham is now 95 percent leased just a year after it opened, an uncommonly fast fill-up. Also straight ahead for Lakeshore East is an 82-story building for residential units and perhaps a hotel. It's planned for the east side of Columbus Drive across from the Fairmont Hotel. The architect is Jeanne Gang of Chicago, and while early sketches have circulated on the Internet, Loewenberg said they aren't accurate. ONE AUTO 'PENTHOUSE' ALREADY HAS BEEN SOLD.IT'S SORT OF A GUY THING. DICK DELANEY IS BUILDING A PENTHOUSE, an outrageously luxurious, one-of-a-kind space whose eventual owner will claim unassailable bragging rights. Delaney envisions the finished space outfitted with an array of flat-screen TVs on the walls, a tricked-out sound system, a full wet bar, steam shower and other extravagances. But unlike those roomy penthouses that perch atop downtown condo high-rises and command expansive views of the lake, the parks and the skyline, the one Delaney is creating will be four stories below Randolph Street. It will have no windows at all and it will be about the size of a two-car garage. In fact, it is a garage. Delaney wants $1 million for it. The Northbrook resident, who has spent 15 years in arguably the most plain-vanilla business there is-buying and selling parking spaces-is going for the double-fudge monkey of parking: He's building the most lavish single parking space in Chicago, perhaps in the whole country. It's among the 400 parking spots Delaney is selling condo-style in Field Harbor Parking below East Randolph Street, and they are an extreme example of the deeded parking boom that parallels the explosion in downtown living. "We'll put the wet bar and the seating over here and the flat-screen TVs on these three walls," Delaney is saying as he stands in what is now a 20-by-20-foot storage space piled with old hoses, signs and buckets. "We're gonna put in showroom-style flooring and a sound system that would blow the roof off your house, but you're protected down here. "Then you pull in your sports car decked out in the highest level of finish you can possibly imagine. This is the ultimate tree fort for a guy, isn't it?" A better question is, will it sell? Delaney has reason to think so. A car collector has already bought a similar private-entrance space-along with eight regular parking spaces-and will do the finishing himself. He paid about $500,000 for the deal, Delaney says. The two-story Field Harbor was built in the 1980s on what had been Illinois Central tracks beneath the row of apartment towers on East Randolph. It operated as a rental parking garage but, Delaney says, never thrived because it was too far from Michigan Avenue. That was before the downtown-living concept took off and way before Millennium Park flowered across the street-and up four flights of stairs-from the garage. Delaney bought it for $4 million, or $10,000 a space, in 1997 on behalf of New York parking pasha Armand Lasky, who owns more than 12,000 rental spaces in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Houston, according to Delaney. He says he converted the upper level to ownership spaces in 2003 and sold them all in 11 months. While there are other condo-style parking garages in big cities, "Dick's is probably the first really successful one," says Peter Flotz, a partner in LM Group, a parking consultant and investment firm based in Florida. Flotz and his partner bought three Field Harbor spaces because, he says, "This is right at the beginning of a big trend in parking garages. We'd have bought more, but we ran out of money." The lower level is now selling, too, at $35,500 to $62,500 per space, depending on location. About 295 have been sold in all, says Paulette Rodriguez, Field Harbor's sales director. Owners include WFLD-Ch. 32 news anchor Mark Suppelsa, a London accountant who bought 20 spaces for $600,000 and a Blue Cross/Blue Shield executive who snapped up 12 so far. "He leases them to his co-workers," Rodriguez says. Michael Dudek, a South Loop attorney, spent a total of $36,500 on seven spaces and rents them out at $150 or $175 a month. A residential landlord as well, Dudek says parking spaces are much easier to manage than houses and condos. "When I compare what I have to do when a tenant moves out of a house-clean it, change the locks-to when I have a change of tenants in a parking space, it's really simple," he says. "They might have dripped some oil in the space, but that's relatively easy to clean up." Dudek is counting on the expansion of Lakeshore East-5,500 housing units being built on a former golf course immediately north of the garage, to spike both demand by renters and the resale value of spaces. He bought a space near his office on South Plymouth Court in 1990, before Printers Row got hot; its value has more than quadrupled, he says. Delaney is equally bullish on his million-dollar auto penthouse at Field Harbor, believing its status appeal got a boost when the other one sold. He is positively uncorked when he talks about his plans for the space. The outside entrance is, for now, a dreary blank wall with a garage door in it, but Delaney wants to finish it with a special facade for a buyer. Maybe make it look like a Tuscan villa or a contemporary house in LA's hip Venice Beach. Or better yet, finish it like the entrance to the Bat Cave-an apt choice, considering that to get there you have to drive down a labyrinth of ramps below Randolph Street and Columbus Drive. Flotz, the parking consultant, also believes the space will sell. "There'll be a line to get that one," he says. There's nothing like it anywhere else. It differentiates you from anyone else, and if you're a guy willing to spend $475,000 on the new Porsche twin turbo, you'll take it." Delaney feels the same way about his penthouse. "After the third wife and the boat, a guy is going to get into collecting cars," he maintains. "Where do you want to put your best car? Here. "You come in here with some buddies and your car, you watch the game on four or five flat screens. It's gonna be great."
Green stretches past park By John Handley Millennium Park is more than a smash hit with visitors to Chicago. It also is an economic engine powering the East Loop, real estate experts say. "Millennium Park is becoming Chicago's version of New York's Central Park," says Louis D'Angelo, president of Metropolitan Properties, whose company is converting the 1920s-era Straus Building at 310 S. Michigan Ave. into 243 condominiums and renaming it Metropolitan Tower. And, as with Central Park, homes on the park or near it are commanding premium prices, even as thousands of other condos rise in a downtown building boom. The park cost a staggering $475 million to build, but new development and rising condo prices promise a hefty property tax dividend. Tourists and locals alike flock to the park and nearby businesses, as affluent home shoppers gather to buy a piece of the view. It wasn't always so. The 24 1/2 acres at the north end of Grant Park used to be far from beautiful. "Millennium Park makes a huge difference in the beauty of Chicago's front lawn," said Stephen Friedman, president of S.B. Friedman, a Chicago real estate consulting firm. "Before, the site ... was an eyesore with railroad tracks and parking lots. Now, it is a premium environment. Values have gone way up for residential around the park, far beyond what lake views alone would be worth." A city study estimates that the impact of the park will increase the value of residential units by $100 per square foot. But the future of downtown Chicago's residential boom may also hold the key to the success of development around the park. The downtown market "will keep moving, but certainly not at the record-level pace it has been in the last nine months," housing analyst Tracy Cross said Thursday, adding that 7,000 units are being sold or absorbed annually, compared with about a 3,200 rate just after Sept. 11. "You get a double whammy when interest rates rise. The primary buyer is affected on affordability" and investor participation in the downtown market, which has been 20 percent to 25 percent of sales, will move "to 10 to 12 percent over the next five years." Projects in the Millennium Park area are a disproportionately strong force in the market, Cross said, with 10 of 229 major developments citywide accounting for 47 percent of sales. Views that can't be blocked are responsible, he added. Redevelopment of the park area was targeted to celebrate the dawning of the new millennium. After delays and cost overruns, Millennium Park finally opened, to rave reviews, on July 16, 2004. Despite instant popularity, many Chicagoans continued to ask whether the park was worth more than three times the original cost estimate. Some answers are emerging. A 2005 economic impact study commissioned by the city's Department of Planning and Development estimates that the value of residential development attributable to Millennium Park over the next 10 years will total $1.4 billion. The study calculates that 25 percent of the 10,000 residential units to be built in that time period will be attributable to the park. The area influenced by Millennium Park is bounded by State Street, Lake Shore Drive, the Chicago River and Roosevelt Road, according to the study by the Goodman Williams Group and URS Corp. It estimates that the impact of the park will increase the value of residential units by $100 per square foot. That would mean an average 1,400-square-foot condo would be worth $140,000 more because it's near the park. The study also said Millennium Park has had a positive effect on retail sales, hotels, restaurants and visitor spending in the area. "Millennium Park has become a status symbol, a focal point, a magnet for the surrounding neighborhood, making properties around the park extremely desirable," said Gail Lissner, vice president of Appraisal Research Counselors, a Chicago firm that tracks real estate sales. She noted that recent sales at the Heritage at Millennium Park, a new 57-story condo building overlooking the park, are up 25 percent, to $500 a square foot, since sales began in 2001. "We built the Heritage because of the park, though we didn't realize how awesome it would become," said Richard Hanson, a principal at Mesa Development, the building's developer. "Millennium Park got the buzz going. It anchors residential uses around it." Hanson estimates that the Heritage will generate $5 million to $6 million in real estate taxes a year. "The park entirely exceeded our expectations," said Ann Nash, who moved into a 19th-floor, east-facing unit at the Heritage with her husband, Tom, in March. "When we bought in 2001, it was a leap of faith. But the concept of the park drew us." The couple moved back downtown after living 20 years in Evanston and raising three daughters. Both lawyers, they work together downtown, a two-block walk. "My husband is in the park almost every day," she said. Nash noted that the popularity of the park and new residential construction have enlivened the downtown area south of the river. "The success of the park has created an explosion of demand," said D'Angelo of Metropolitan Properties. "Clearly, the area has been revitalized into a 24/7 neighborhood. The East Loop is now much more vibrant and inviting than it was 10 years ago. "Compared to 2002, residential prices have risen $200 a square foot as a direct result of Millennium Park. Now, every owner of an office building on Michigan Avenue overlooking the park is asking if it is feasible to convert to residential," he said. "The city is supportive because residential will result in a net increase in tax revenue." Cranes at the north end of the park are busy at 340 on the Park. The 62-story glass building is planned for 340 residential units priced from the high $300s to $800 per square foot, said Thomas Weeks, president of LR Development, co-developer of the building at 340 E. Randolph St. with the Magellan Development Group and NNP Residential & Development. The 340 tower, with unobstructed views south, is part of Lakeshore East, the massive residential project planned for 4,950 residential units that stretches north to East Wacker Drive. Joel Carlins, president of Magellan Development Group, estimates that the value of Lakeshore East homes has increased 3 percent to 5 percent because of the park. At the south end of Grant Park, one new project will offer views of Millennium Park from units in a 67-story tower. Called One Museum Park, the 276-unit condo at Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive will be built by The Enterprise Cos. Ed Uhlir, project director for the park's construction, explained how the park grew both in size and cost. "The original idea was only 16 acres of green space. Expectations were not high," said Uhlir, who now is executive director of Millennium Park Inc., which raises funds to maintain the park, among other functions. "Then we expanded from modest to spectacular with the help of private donations. The park and its public art took longer to design and build. "When it opened, I had no idea it would be such a big hit. Attendance is estimated at 2.5 [million] to 3 million a year. People are coming from all over the world. Chicagoans are amazed when friends come from out of town and the first thing they want to do is see Millennium Park." Downtown parkers avoid the boot Nearly 180,000 parking tickets were issued during the first eight months of this year in the 42nd Ward, which includes Chicago's downtown and Gold Coast areas. That's more tickets -- by far -- than any other ward. But when it comes to applying the wheel-locking Denver boot, the 42nd Ward is nowhere near the top. Motorists parking in the congested ward have been booted 538 times. Thirty-two other wards have higher booting numbers. That's just one of the surprising tidbits from the ward-by-ward booting and ticketing breakdown released to aldermen this week during City Council hearings on Mayor Daley's 2006 budget. BOOTS AND TICKETS The 41st Ward tops the list with 1,581 boots through Aug. 30. No surprise there -- the ward includes O'Hare Airport, where a private parking manger has free rein to roam the indoor garage and surface lots in search of scofflaws with three or more unpaid parking tickets. Scofflaws looking to stay one step ahead of the boot would also be advised to stay out of: the 2nd Ward (1,170 boots); the 27th (1,072); the 37th (1,039); the 29th (1,029); the 28th (990); the 15th (944); the 1st (936), and the 6th (922). The least booted wards are: the 36th Ward (168); the 19th (206); the 10th (221); the 45th (305); the 38th (348), and the 7th (361). "Is this anything I can brag about?" said Ald. William Banks (36th). Citywide, 2.05 million tickets were issued through Aug. 30 and 33,903 vehicles have been booted. That's down from 3.25 million tickets and 45,295 boots during all of last year. Revenue Department spokeswoman Efrat Dallal said the 42nd Ward has 179,839 tickets but only 538 boots, probably because there is so much traffic and so many "transient" parkers.She could not explain why all but two of the top nine wards on the boot list are majority black wards. "All wards are treated exactly the same. We establish a uniform way of booting that's equitable and fair by creating zones that rotate every other week. There are 18 boot crews and 30 different zones . . . that are rotated every other week," she said. Alderman wants explanation Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (2nd) said she's "troubled" by the 922 boots applied in her ward. Millennium Park Condo Boom Creating Shortage Of Affordable Parking The amazing popularity of downtown Chicago’s
Millennium Park has sparked a boom in condominium Located on Michigan Avenue between Randolph
and Monroe streets, Millennium Park is an unprecedented Lakeshore East development, a 28-acre complex
just steps from Michigan Avenue and north of But where is the affordable parking? Today, downtown
condominium developers are charging $45,000 “As property keeps appreciating in the hot
Millennium Park neighborhood, people are seeing the “New-construction downtown condominium developments typically offer only one parking space per unit. Demand is already surpassing supply. The trend is clear,” noted Paulette Rodriguez, who is marketing condo garage spaces at the 407-car Field Harbor Parking garage on the lower level at 165 N. Field Blvd. just north of Millennium Park. An automobile access ramp recently opened to provide traffic access to the lower level of the community. More than 25-percent of the 197 indoor deeded
and heated parking spaces in Phase II at Field Harbor The condo garage currently is offering a summer
promotion for buyers, guaranteeing $1,500 discount In Phase I of the condo garage, all 205 parking spaces sold out within 11 months, Rodriguez said.“Buyers range from homeowners without deeded parking, local and foreign investors as well as city and suburban residents,” Rodriguez said. The two-level Field Harbor Parking garage is on the southern fringe of the Lake Shore East development, a stone’s throw from Burnham Harbor and the Columbia Yacht Club. “Within five months, the garage also will have a new $500,000 commercial elevator for 8 to 10 people that will connect the lower-level parking garage to Randolph Street,” said Delaney. “The convenience of having your own private
parking space near Millennium Park avoids hassles Purchasing a parking space is much like buying a
condominium or any other piece of real estate, Driver caught in ticket trap
No parking: Better watch those signs of the times I'm going only by the stories I'm hearing from you guys as well as my own observations over the last few months, but I'm willing to bet that we've set a new standard in downtown Chicago. The time between the moment your car is parked illegally and a tow truck shows up to take it away has NEVER been shorter. If it's 6 a.m. and you park under a sign that says "NO PARKING FROM 7-9 A.M.," you better return to your car by 7:01, or your vehicle could be gone. Those towing guys are hovering like a "Girls Gone Wild!" crew over a drunken sophomore on South Padre Island. |
