Marathon! Runners on the Bridge and Through the Towers

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A field of 45,000 runners begins the 2014 Chicago Marathon wending their wave through the architecture of River North and the Loop.

Chicago's Public Riverwalk a-Building; Public/Private Riverwalk a-closing

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Going for a walk downtown along the Chicago River these days inevitably is dominated by the massive, ongoing construction site that's the new Riverwalk being constructed along the south bank.  Just last week, the passage that will allow pedestrians to walk beneath the Dearborn Street bridge was put into place.

Maybe it was just bad timing, however, but on Saturday the story along the northern and western banks - where the riverwalk consists of a sequence of private walkways open to the public - was a decidedly different story, as if the property owners league had decided to give a big middle finger to the Chicago public.

At the Reid Murdoch building, the passage from Clark to LaSalle remains closed.

. . .  as was the riverwalk next to Riverbend across fromWolf Point, but perhaps the management of 300 North LaSalle put it most succinctly . . .

Pour le Concret: Chicago's new Riverwalk Emerges

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Work has been going on at the new Chicago Riverwalk, stretching along the south bank from State Street to Wacker, since early this year.   The armada of tour and pleasure boats have been circumventing construction barges all summer, as first the old concrete walkways were demolished, and new pilings put in for the expanded walkway.

After the new edges were constructed, then came the gravel - mountains of it - to create new river landfill.

After the gravel, the rebar.

And now this weekend, the towering yellow concrete pipes were put in place along Wacker, pumping concrete down to the Riverwalk below.

 

 

The project has a budget of $90 to $100 million dollars, financed by loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the money to be paid back (from where has yet to be determined) over 30 years.  A collaboration between CDOT, Ross Barney Architects, and Sasaki Associates, each block of the riverwalk has its own design scheme.   The block between Clark and LaSalle was called The Theater.  Chicago Department of Transportation Manager has described it �as kind of Chicago's Spanish Steps, if you will.  We'll have this great big grand stairwell that comes down to the river, and then gently cutting throughout the stairways is a nice ramp so if you have a wheelchair, or if you have a child in the stroller, you'll be able to come from up to down.�

Before . . .

After . . . 

Read More about the new Chicago Riverwalk:

Part One - Introduction and Block One: The Marina

Part Two - Opera on the River? (or Maybe just some jazz)

Part Three - Conclusion: Swimming Holes and Wolf Calls

Firewood Mountain, and other Scenes from a Saturday walk through Chicago's Near Northwest side

Subway Aurora Borealis

Chinese Finger Trap, Claes Oldenberg style
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Goose Island geese

Submerged dock (more geese)

Blue Factory on North Dayton

Chicago Firewood on Halsted

 

Kendall College vegetable garden bunny

Giant Punch Stamp on the River? First Renderings for 150 North Riverside office tower and park - Revealed and Considered

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150 North Riverside and date stamp - separated at birth?

Is a new real estate bubble rising around the Chicago River?  Long dormant land in and around Wolf Point is already under construction with two major skyscrapers, and this morning, in an email to his constituents, 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly unveiled the first renderings I've seen of the proposed office tower for 150 North Riverside, to be built on air rights over tracks leading into Union Station . . .

. . . just east of Graham Anderson, Probst and White's 1922 Butler Brothers warehouse II.

I actually worked for 6 years on its top floor before it was converted by Hartshorne Plunkard into the Randolph Place Lofts.  Unlike its twin building to the south, which was made into - and remains - offices - it's now housing, and the residential nature of Randolph Place may be a key reason while 150 North Riverside is placed in the middle of the site.  The Trib's Blair Kamin is tweeting Goettsch Partners is responsible for the design.

Unusual proposed office tower for Chicago riverfront, by Goettsch Partners, flares out from base to upper floors. pic.twitter.com/DV9Uv43Eih
� Blair Kamin (@BlairKamin) July 17, 2013

The 1.2 million square foot building is being pushed by long-time John Buck veteran John O'Donnell, now of the Chicago operations of Colliers International.  An April article by Ryan Ori in Crain's Chicago Business reported O'Donnell had given up a request for $20 million in TIF funding to get approval for the project moving forward.  River Point, currently under construction along the river across the street, got $29.5 million in TIF money to cover over the Metra tracks and create a riverfront park.  Instead, O'Donnell wants the city to give him a slice of land worth $4-5 million the city controls to make his site complete.  The rest of it was purchased for $12.5 million in 2011.

According to Crain's, Reilly had been fighting an earlier proposal because the park component wasn't at ground level.  In the rendering released in his email, the park remains entirely at the elevated street level, with no riverbank component

Boeing riverwalk

Across Randolph Street to the south, at the Boeing World Headquarters (originally designed by Perkins+Will in 1990 for Morton Salt), the riverside esplanade is split into two, relatively narrow parts, one above-grade, at the level of Randolph and Lake streets, with another narrow strip descending all the way down to the river. In the 150 Riverside rendering, the plaza space is all at street level, with a larger portion south of Lake tucked beneath the angled cantilevers of the building.

park at River Point

Across the street to the north, on the other side of Lake Street, renderings of the park building built along the river as part of the River Point shows, as at Boeing, a park split between ground and street level.  The ground level links to a riverside esplanade at the River Bend residential tower to the north. The difference is the River Point site is actually set back to the west, parallel to where the Butler Brothers building is sited to the south.  The park itself is to be a built over what looks to be pretty much the whole expanse of the Metra tracks, making the acre-and-a-half park much larger than what's possible at 150 North Riverside.  (Don't be fooled by the rendering, which is drawn from an exaggerated wide-angle perspective that makes the park look only slightly smaller than Yellowstone.)

150 North Riverside

I get what Ald. Reilly is looking for, a continuous riverwalk from River Point to the elevated plaza of the old Daily News Building.  It would require the addition of under-the-bridge linking components, but it would offer up something similar to continuous Riverwalk now under development for the south bank of the river from Lake to Wabash.   The problem, of course, is that it could only go to the old Daily News Building (now Riverside Plaza), at Madison, where the riverwalk south to Jackson is all elevated at street level.  (And let's hope 150 North doesn't give Sam Zell ideas about resurrecting his old plan to build over the Daily News Plaza.  Surprise, surprise, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks has never gotten around to landmarking this essential Chicago building.)

Daily News Building (Riverside Plaza) meets the river

So for continuity, you want a large part of the park at 150 North Riverside to be at an elevated level so it will link it to the existing river walkways north and south.  If you want to split off a walkway along the river, it would have to be somewhat narrow, and, as at Boeing, it's hard to find a graceful way to get people to the lower level without a vertiginous shotgun stairway.  In addition, the 150 North Riverside rendering also shows the space along the river beneath the plaza to be inhabited with some function not clearly apparent.

As for the building itself, if it weren't for the angled cantilever at the bottom, it really doesn't have much to distinguish itself visually at all and, at first glance, I'm not even sure the cantilever works.  There seems to be a lot of tall, tall concrete at the base.  Dear readers, what's your take?

In any event, more should learned from the public hearing.  Welcome to the arena, Mr. O'Donnell.

42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly is sponsoring a public meeting for his constituents on 150 North Riverside, 6:00 p.m., July 31st in Walnut Ballroom of the Hotel Allegro, 171 West Randolph.

Read More:

Hour of the Wolf:  The Transformation of the Pivot Point of Chicago

The Daily News Building Plaza: Endgame for one of Chicago's Great Public Spaces?

Finishing the River Walk - Conclusion: Swimming Holes and Wolf Calls

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When last we left our traversal of the City of Chicago's plans for finishing the Chicago Riverwalk, we were about to cross under the LaSalle Street bridge.  While design for the three blocks to the east is 90% finished, the final three blocks going west are in a much more preliminary stage, with design listed as only 10% complete.

The Swimming Hole, south bank of Chicago River, LaSalle to Wells

The first of these blocks, from LaSalle to Wells, is currently called the Swimming Hole, but according to Chicago Department of Transportation Project Manager Michelle Woods, �I've been strongly encouraged to change the name because the Coast Guard thinks people will grab their beach towel and their flip-flops and go for a swim in the river.�

The Swimming Hole is actually a zero-depth fountain that kids could run through.  �This is the block,� says Woods, �that has the most amount of sunlight throughout the day.  This could be a very fun place for families and enjoy a nice day.  There's all kinds of technology and different things you can do so that the floor could look like a dance floor and light up as the water sprays, as the kids run through.  It could light up and interact with the kids climbing on it.�  The concept includes �more robust� bathroom facilities that would include rooms where kids could change in and out of their swimsuits.

The Jetty, Wells to Franklin

In the current, early concepts, the next block, from Wells to Franklin, is called The Jetty.  �It's actually my favorite block,� says Woods.  �It has fishing piers and floating gardens.  Instead of having a concession here, this would be a place I would like to set up as a classroom space and partner with the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District to have them bring kids to come learn about ecology, water quality and the history of the river, and maybe give them an opportunity to go fishing and enjoy a natural resource in the middle of the city.  At nighttime, this could be a place where we have caterers, maybe have it leased out for corporate events and nighttime activities.  You could have a glass of wine or a beer and wander around onto the fishing piers and enjoy a nice night on the river.�

The Boardwalk, Franklin to Lake Street

The final block, from Franklin to Lake Street, is called The Boardwalk.  �This is the section,� says Woods, �where we have a 50-foot buildout, and so we have a lot more space.  The idea originally was let's put some floating gardens in, let's have a nice boardwalk area, a nice public space, right at this big confluence of the river at Wolf Point, where people can hang out and enjoy all the traffic and things going on along the river.�  The rendering depicts an �iconic bridge�, that rises from the river level to Lake Street in a gentle slope.  �This is the section,� says Woods, �where I've been challenged - �can you create more retail space here?�, can you do something a little bit more �Chicago�, so we're working on that now.�

River Point Park

As we wrote previously, this is one segment where we really need to be seeing some kind of co-ordination between the three major park projects around Wolf Point,  In addition to the Riverwalk, $29 million in TIF funds are going to burying the Metra tracks under a new park along the river at the 45-story River Point office tower rising at 444 West Lake,  At the opposite bank, once the billion dollars of development is completed at Wolf Point, 70% of the site will be parkland, with nearly 900 linear feet of Riverwalk.

planned Wolf Point Riverwalk

Everyone doing their own thing is, of course, a grand Chicago tradition, but you can't help but think that it's taken all of Chicago's 175 history to get to the point of reshaping Wolf Point as a public amenity.  Once the pieces are in place, who knows when we'll have this opportunity again.  Doesn't it just make sense to have all the parties sit down and co-ordinate the vistas and functions?

The ultimate objective is to draw 2.8 million people to the Riverwalk each year.  Woods' presentation compared this to Lincoln Park (3 million visitors annually), New York's High Line (3.7 million), and at 5.1 million, the San Antonio River Walk, the gold standard that Ernie Pyle once referred to as �The Venice of America�.

The cost of completing the Chicago Riverwalk is estimated at $90-100 million, with over $3 million already spent on the design.  The city is confident that funding will be available from the Federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.  Last year, the U.S. Department of Transportation made available $17 billion in loan guarantees through the program's $1.7 billion in credit assistance.

TIFA would finance the Chicago Riverwalk via a 30-year loan at a reduced rate of interest. The loans, often used for things such as toll roads, require a revenue stream to pay them back.  For the Chicago Riverwalk completion, one proposal is to repay TIFA from a TIF,  with Woods mentioning revenue from the Riverwalk concessions as another possibility.  How many concessions and closings for private parties would you need to come up with the over $3 million a year needed to pay back the loan?  And if all the Riverwalk's revenue went to debt service, where would the money come from for regular maintenance?

Those are questions that - at least publicly - have yet to be addressed, but the deal may already be near to closing.  In an interview with Tanya Snyder of the DC.StreetsBlog, outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says that a formal announcement may come as early as next month.  If everything goes well, construction could begin this year, with a completion time of 15 to 18 months per block.

Read: Finishing the Chicago Riverwalk
Part One - Introduction and Block One: The Marina
Part Two - Opera on the River? (or Maybe just some jazz)