![]() ![]() “You are an integral part of our community, and you have invested in your future while investing in ours.”Īs part of the deal, the state will receive $30 million in cash and will get 115 S. “Google is one of Chicago’s most important companies,” Pritzker said. The sale will benefit the company, as well as Illinois taxpayers and Chicagoans, he said. The Thompson Center will be “entirely redeveloped” into an office suite for Google’s workers as part of the deal, Gov. The tech giant has agreed to buy all of the building for $105 million after it is renovated by other organizations. "You can't even compare the two.This afternoon, Block Club Chicago reported that Google will take over the Thompson Center. " The South Loop is different from the north end," one woman said at the end of the meeting. Still, many who attended the meeting left unsatisfied, and as they returned to their neighborhood still rife with vintage lofts and other low-rise buildings, unconvinced by the developers' pitch to make their part of town more of a skyscraper haven like the north end of The Loop. "If we start saying no to building buildings like this in Chicago, we won't grow." "To grow you have to add housing," Burns said. He repeated several times that the meeting marked the first public presentations in a long planning process, but did say that both affected project sites - Oxford's a parking garage and JK's a vacant lot - should be developed to a "higher and better use." Oxford has not completed shadow or traffic studies yet for its project.īurns, the alderman, occasionally directed traffic at the meeting, which quickly turned heated as neighbors expressed their concerns. "We build tall buildings in Chicago," he said. When asked by the room how his project would fit in with neighboring buildings along the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, Oxford CEO John Rutledge said his team is "very sensitive to doing things the right way," and wants to add to the city's longtime legacy as the birthplace of the skyscraper. The 54-story, 454-unit apartment tower would rise next to the Essex, and include two rooftop bars - one for residents and another for the public - that would look over Grant Park through a criss-cross of beams connecting to the high-rise's upper floors.Ī street-view rendering of the proposed tower at 800 S. Michigan Ave., that the firm acquired last year. Oxford's project two blocks north also involves a vintage rehab: that of the 14-story Essex Inn, 800 S. Karlik believes it would take his firm about a year to pre-sell enough condos to convince a construction lender to finance the project, and he believes construction would take about three years. The project, a joint venture between JK and New York-based Time Equities, would also include 598 interior parking spaces and a renovation of a 111-year-old, eight-story office building next door at 1006 S. ![]() The Jahn tower would include 506 units, and in a departure from most recent Downtown developments, 358 of them would be condos. "But frankly nobody expected an 86-story building."Ī view of the proposed Jahn-designed tower, left, looking north. We all knew that sooner or later this valuable property next to our building would be developed," said Greg Taylor, president of the condominium association governing a building at 910 S. Though the proposals are grand, they were met immediately with skepticism from neighbors concerned about the towers' impact on traffic, views from nearby buildings and the historic integrity of South Michigan Avenue's "street wall" they prefer to be less dense than the other parts of Downtown. Michigan Ave.ĭave Matthews says neighbors are concerned about crowding: ![]() Will Burns (4th) at East-West University, 816 S. "We are complementing what is happening at the north end of the park," Philip Castillo, a partner at Jahn's architecture firm, said at Thursday's meeting, which was hosted by Ald. ![]()
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