Height: Unknown
Floor count: 39
Location: North Wells and West Randolph
Neighborhood: Loop
Construction end:
Architect:
Developer: Clovis Investments LLC

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4836/174wrandolph.jpg

http://www.suntimes.com/business/3392214-417/zosky-randolph-tower-building-former.html

http://www.studiodllc.com/sitevista/property.php?p=20

Not exactly inspiring, but I'll take it for that location. Beats a parking lot any day.

Boo!

Go away.

Tired of these huge parking podiums. This has got to stop..

http://www.suntimes.com/business/3392214-417/zosky-randolph-tower-building-former.html

An investor group that includes a suburban contractor and a former Chicago planning commissioner wants to build a 39-story tower in the Randolph Street theater district.

Clovis Investments LLC, headed by Joseph Zosky, has proposed the tower for 174 W. Randolph, vacant property wedged between two landmark buildings. It would contain a hotel, residences for seniors and several levels of parking.

Zosky is president of Romeoville-based Zcorp Services Co., a general contractor. His partners in Clovis include former planning commissioner Christopher Hill; prominent real estate lawyer Thomas Murphy, and Knight Partners LLC, part of a downtown-based engineering firm. Hill left the Daley administration in 2000 after a four-year run overseeing the era’s building boom.

The $100 million building could be started in a couple of years, Zosky said.

He has begun seeking city approval for the project because several companies have expressed interest in managing different elements in the building, he said.

“This is more than just us being optimistic,” Zosky said.

“We don’t have this put together yet but we’re trying. It might take me a little longer than someone else to do this, but I’m persistent,” he added later.

He has asked the city to change the parcel’s zoning to a planned development. The request will lead to a review by city agencies and, if they approve, the City Council will get the final vote. The process usually lasts several months.

Zosky’s group has paid for demolition of three small buildings on the site and received city permission for a surface parking lot now operating there.

In the past, city planners suggested a theater at the property, but Zosky said its tight dimensions make that impractical. He said the land measures 80 feet by 180 feet.

The site is across Randolph from the Cadillac Palace Theatre and between the old State of Illinois Building at 160 N. La Salle and a Gothic tower at 188 W. Randolph that’s being refurbished for apartments.

Zosky said he developed the design of the building with in-house architects and with Christopher Dasse, president of the small firm Studio D Architecture LLC.

Zcorp, founded in 2001, reports its has finished more than 100 construction projects. Asked about his work as a developer, Zosky said he completed senior housing in Bolingbrook and that the economy forced him to drop some recent deals.

Zosky is a former executive with the construction company Paul H. Schwendener Inc., which had high-profile assignments at O’Hare Airport and the Museum of Science and Industry.

Boo!

Go away.

Tired of these huge parking podiums. This has got to stop..

I do not understand the problem with parking podiums, particularly when they are integrated in a high rise building. Obviously, they serve a very important purpose of allowing people who live in or visit the building to park their vehicles on the premises.

Moreover, parking podiums do not prevent buildings fro having shops, bars, restaurants and other amenities that enable pedestrian access and enhance the overall urban environment. If you look at Rush street, many of the ground level retail/bars/restaurants are located at the bases of two parking garages- one at 900 n. michigan, and the other one at state between bellevue and oak.

Well I like the high parking podium only because if I were to get a cheap room there then the lowest floor will still be high up...

Well I like the high parking podium only because if I were to get a cheap room there then the lowest floor will still be high up...

Good point, never thought of it that way.

The roof height according to the diagram is 430 and 455 up to the top of the mechanical screen.

I do not understand the problem with parking podiums, particularly when they are integrated in a high rise building. Obviously, they serve a very important purpose of allowing people who live in or visit the building to park their vehicles on the premises.

Moreover, parking podiums do not prevent buildings fro having shops, bars, restaurants and other amenities that enable pedestrian access and enhance the overall urban environment. If you look at Rush street, many of the ground level retail/bars/restaurants are located at the bases of two parking garages- one at 900 n. michigan, and the other one at state between bellevue and oak.

The problem really lies in how it encourages people to drive in the city. This in turn encourages roadways to widen, which encourages more driving and so on and so forth. We can't build cities for cars; we should build them for people.

This location is within walking distance to at least four rapid transit stops, three really well connected train station and is extremely walkable to everything else. We shouldn't encurage what looks like a twenty story parking garage there. Put parking in some transit starved area because you have to but, randolph street in the loop is not one of those areas.

And it is really difficult to design parking structures to be elegant. The architecture on them are almost alway atrocious; this design being no exception.

What this does have going for it? I suppose its density and that there would be store frontage at the bottom; but that doesn't mean we should ask for less parking and a better design. Believe me, those two go hand in hand.

Tired of these huge parking podiums. This has got to stop..

Yow, 14 stories high, and with a narrow turning radius to boot. Imagine going around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and then repeating it all on your way out.

Even if the podiums have ground-level retail, they still (a) break up the sidewalk with driveways, which are especially dangerous on streets like Randolph that are flooded with people walking east-west to the commuter terminals, and (b) still deaden the space just above ground level. People walking down the street only see the first 4-6 stories of a building (our plane of vision is about 15 degrees up/down), and it's vastly better to have those floors filled with people rather than metal cages.

Ah. I figured the garage entrance was in the alley. That sucks.