Updates, Day One: No Casino for Wabash?? (And no walkway for you!)

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On Tuesday, the Chicago Architecture Blog reported that an invasion of wrecking equipment had shown up at the long-shuttered Lake Shore Athletic club at 441 North Wabash, best known for its windowless walls and inset blue metal stairway . . .

Back in 2013, we had proposed the bunkered building and its adjoining parking lot as the perfect site for a new Chicago casino.  Last year, we reported on how a developer had assembled the site plus the National Realtors Building on Michigan Avenue in the block just to the east, and was floating a proposal to replace it all with some kind of new mega-tower.  Before any details emerged, however, 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly quickly spiked the idea, citing the city ownership of the viaduct that is topped off by the Plaza of the Americas, which was also rumored to be part of the new tower plan.

Well, I guess it's time to fire up the rumors again.  Or is all we'll see in the indefinite future is still another surface parking lot?  Is the Goat again in jeopardy?  The most annoying part of all of this for us normal people is that the Hubbard Street walkway linking Michigan Avenue to Wabash, which re-opened after repairs not that very long ago, is again closed off.

Read More:

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper, as Billy Goat's, Benito Jaurez and his plaza Contemplate their Future.

Alderman Reilly puts the brakes to the Realtors . . .

Please Tread on Me.

Alderman Reilly put the brakes to the Realtors, plus What's Up with that Shear Wall at the new Hilton Garden Inn?

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The Billy Goat Tavern and Benito Ju�rez can rest easy, at least for a while.  According to 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly, the bulldozers won't be coming anytime soon to the National Association of Realtors Building just north of the Wrigley Building on.Michigan Avenue.

 �As far as I'm concerned, the project that was described in the paper last week is not real.  I have not reviewed any materials related to massing, design, traffic - any of it.  In fact the first I heard about a Realtor Building demolition was when I read about it in the newspapers.  So if the local alderman's not aware of all these grand plans, it isn't real.  Unfortunately, when leaks like that occur, it scares a lot of people, [Billy Goat owner] Sam Sianis down in the base - a lot of people care about the Plaza of the Americas, especially me, because I'm the one who compelled the Realtors to repair it on their dime.�

42nd ward Alderman Brendan Reilly

Reilly, responding last night to a Chicago Tribune article last week on the Realtors plans for a one-to-two million square foot tower on their site, clarified the situation with the Avenue of Americas plaza, anchored by the statue of Benito Ju�rez, that separates the Realtors building from the Wrigley annex.

�It's not for them to tear down.  Those are all city easements under there.  And by the way, I would never let them take away the Plaza of the Americas.  It's a very important plaza to a lot of people in Chicago.  So whatever plans they want to develop, I'm all ears, but they have not come in to share with me .�

�They have a lot of work to do before they can come in and see me, pitch me on a proposal, but whatever they come up with, whether it involves taking that building down or not, it's going to be subject to a very rigorous public process, and it will be open to the public.  This will be a very deliberative process, so nothing's going to get done in the middle of night over there. �

As we near the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy this Friday, another historic factor of the current building came to light in a column by the Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg.  In 1963, the Realtors building, then the Apollo Savings building, was the headquarters of the broadcast division of United Press International, and it was where the bulletins on the breaking news of the death of the president went out to the world.

Reilly spoke at a meeting he sponsored last night at Harry Weese's 17th Church of Christ Scientist at which plans for a new 25-story Hilton Garden Inn on a small vacant lot next to the church were presented to the community for comments.

unlike what this photograph may imply, architect David Ervin's hands are actually completely normal

Project architect David Ervin of G/R/E/C architects explained that there are no windows along the western facade of the hotel because, according to Chicago's building code, they would require a 12-foot setback that would take up a quarter of the tight, 48-foot wide site.  Instead, the facing of wall behind 17th Church will be what, according to Ervin, 

. . . could best be described as a mosaic of metal panel.  There's five tones of metal panel.  What we did is we worked with a photograph of the Chicago river with a kind of of light reflectance on the river itself .  We digitized that photograph so [the panels] are acting as pixels.  The further away you get , the more you might perceive the idea of light reflecting on water.  We thought it was a really nice way to handle this facade, which though it doesn't have any windows, has a very, very prominent building to the west of it.  We wanted to frame that building .  We wanted to make the composition of the church building and our building one actually working with the other.  So we think that by going from the darker to the lighter tones we  create a frame for the church building. 

Ervin assured the audience that the wall of panels of aluminum with a baked-on finish wouldn't create the kind of death-ray metal facades that have lately been in the news for burning up cars and gardens in London and Dallas.

Our intent was not to have a reflecting building in that sense in any way, shape or form.  It's not going to be a mirror reflectance.  We're going for matte finish tones.  Inherently, it will has some reflectivity, of course, but it's going to be what I would a low level, lower than than the glass.  The glass will actually have a higher reflectivity.  The panels will be selected to be not highly reflective, so we're not creating any glare.

The building will offer 24 floors with guest rooms facing to the north and south, above a lobby floor and two levels beneath.

The building base is clad in limestone.  We selected limestone because it seems very compatible with both neighbors , with the Chicago Motor Club and the travertine of this building. [17th Church]  It's not a very wide facade.  It's only 48 feet, so we have a very modest steel and glass entry canopy.  The real elements of collaboration are the signage.   We originally presented the kind of Hilton Garden Inn standard signage .  It was suggested to us that we kind of make it a little bit more compelling than what you might see on a normal HGI.  We developed a smaller but richer kind of steel on aluminum back-lit [vertical] sign and then a metal sign [on the front] the building.  That's the extent of the signage.  Nothing up high on the building, which would be prevented by ordinance anyway.  

There are no parking spaces for guest.  Hotel planners expect about 40 valet vehicles on an average night for the 191 rooms.  The building would rise next to the landmark Chicago Motor Building, which is also slated for re-use as a hotel.  The two buildings would share a 5-space valet parking space and the small airspace gap between the buildings would be filled by an expansion joint to keep out moisture.  The back-alley northern facade of the building would be covered in charcoal-colored stucco finish, �basically dark gray tones to allow this [west] facade to pop.�

 Lobby and guest floor floor plans.  Note that the only window on the west side of the building (to the left on the drawing is the small one at the back where the building has a setback that meets the 12-foot fire code requirement.

If all goes according plan, construction - with Walsh the contractor - will begin soon, with a best-case opening in spring of 2015.

Read more:

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper

Windows?  We Don't Need No Stinkin' Windows at the Hilton Garden Inn

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper, as Billy Goat's, Benito Jaurez and his plaza Contemplate their Future

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The Trib's Mary Ellen Podmolik reported late Monday that the National Association of Realtors has plans to demolish their building at 430 North Michigan and trade up its 218,000 square feet for a 1 to 2 million square-foot skyscraper, further sealing the canyonization of Michigan Avenue.

The 11-story 430 North Michigan was designed by architect Fred H. Prather and opened in 1963 as the home to Apollo Savings and Loan, which collapsed in 1968.   The building gained national  notoriety as the home to fictional therapist Bob Newhart, immortalized in the sitcom's opening.

The demolition of 430 North Michigan will take a lot of Chicago history with it.  Not the building itself.  It was never landmark quality, and while it was originally an expression of mid-century modernism,  in 2008 it got a glitzy refacing and sprouted wings at the roof.  In 2011, however, the Wrigley Company sold the Realtors the building behind 430 that beginning in 1934 was Riccardo's, the city's premier bar for newspaper folk, complete with murals by Ivan Albright.  By the 1970's, Riccardo's began a long descent, and the building survives today as a restaurant named after its address, 437 Rush.

But then there's the Billy Goat Tavern, another newsman's hangout frequented by the likes of Studs Terkel and Mike Royko.  With an entrance just west of lower Michigan Avenue, it's called the basement of 430 home for half a century, and will also be be evicted, if only temporarily.

Of far more concern is the status of the Plaza of the Americas, which sits on a raised viaduct that stretches back from Michigan Avenue between the Realtors Building to the north and the Wrigley Building Annex to the south.

In 2010, the depressingly derelict plaza underwent a renovation.  The good news was the $750,000 cost was picked up by the realtors.  The bad news, as the Trib's Blair Kamin noted, was that it was a hack job, done without the participation of an architect or landscape architect.  Unlike the original design of the plaza, there are no benches or seating inviting pedestrians to linger.  The clear message is �look, but keep moving.�

The larger question is why the National Association of Realtors picked up the tab.  In negotiations with 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly, it came to light that the the Association was �legally responsible for maintenance of the Plaza.� Does this mean they own it?  And if they do own it, will it be usurped in whole or in part by the new building?  Podmolik's report only says that the new development will include �building and plaza space.�

Right now, there's a shortage of details.  The entire announcement is slightly vaporous.  No architect has been named, no groundbreaking date set. Podmolik reported that the Association's spokesman would only say �many details need to be worked out and that no decisions are final.�   The Realtors could be trolling for financing that may never come.

If it does, however, we need to make sure that the Plaza of the Americas is not only not lost or abridged, but that Julian Martinez's sculpture of Benito Jaurez looks down on a plaza that is finally worthy both of Mexico's first President and of the site's pivotal location.