now it will be 1,360 feet, second highest in Chicago

TRUMP TOWER UPDATE
Daley to Trump: You're spired!
The mayor wants a fancy top. The Donald disagrees. Guess who wins.

By James Janega and Blair Kamin
Tribune staff reporters
Published February 10, 2005


Donald Trump knows what he likes, and he didn't like a spire on his Chicago building.

"I hated the look of it," Trump said in October while discussing a recent design of the tower.

Mayor Richard Daley knows what he likes too. His tastes run toward the ornamental--concrete planters and wrought iron.

And the mayor wanted his skyline to have a spire in it.

In December, when the Donald was in town pitching his new fragrance, the mayor and the mogul went face to face in Daley's 5th-floor office in City Hall.

"He said, `I want a spire. It's important to the skyline,'" Trump spokeswoman Jill Cremer said of Daley.

And so it is that the latest design for Trump tower is topped by a pointy spike that--depending on how one counts it--could make the building the second tallest in the city and in America, not to mention the seventh tallest in the world.

"He does like spires," Trump remarked of Daley Wednesday.

So to the summits of Chicago's skyline--the Sears Tower, Aon Center and John Hancock Center--add the new Trump tower. With a pointed, decorative spire, please.

Advocates of spires say they can add a spiritual presence to an urban skyline. Cesar Pelli, who designed the sky-piercing Petronas Towers, built in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1996, has called them the point where the ground blends into the firmament. Profane meets sacred. A silhouette pointing to the heavens is etched into a city's sky.

Exactly how Trump's building will point to the heavens isn't clear yet--the latest design for the tower and its spire hasn't been made public.

(Here's a glimpse of who's got the upper hand here: Trump ordered the building's latest plans released Wednesday. But his Chicago architects and real estate attorney refused--Daley, they said, had not seen and signed off on them.)

But details trickled out. As currently designed, the spire will rise to 1,360 feet, said Adrian Smith, the skyscraper's chief architect in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Trump said Wednesday that he was poised to spend $3 million on the spire alone, adding it to what is already a 1,125-foot, 92-story residential office tower costing $750 million. Two extra floors were added to the original plan without increasing the building's height because the skyscraper will be supported by a concrete frame rather than steel. That will eliminate the need to place concrete floor slabs atop steel beams.

City bureaucrats will have to approve the new plans. If they do, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago would become the second-tallest building in the city--well above the 1,136-foot Aon Center and the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center, but still 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building.

It would make Trump's skyscraper 90 feet taller than the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, which is, after the Sears, the nation's runner-up.

Though Trump's Chicago tower will clearly secure a place in the global pantheon of tall buildings, it likely will slip before long.

The planned Freedom Tower at ground zero in lower Manhattan is supposed to rise to 1,776 feet, a height that would symbolically refer to the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

And though the world's tallest building is the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan, Skidmore last year announced construction had begun on a multiuse tower it designed for the United Arab Emirates that will soar to more than 2,000 feet.

Further muddying the Trump tower's place in the world is the arcane way in which the informal arbiters of the world's tallest structures decide which spindly points atop soaring buildings count toward a building's total height, and which do not.

On balance, said Seattle engineer Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, structural elements like spires count. Think of the spire atop the Chrysler Building in New York City. Communications antennas do not. Think of the twin masts atop the Sears Tower or the John Hancock.

Looking at drawings of the Trump tower's tiptop from May, Klemencic said he smelled a controversy brewing.

"This is not a slam-dunk," he said. When the building's design is finalized--perhaps by the end of the week--Klemencic's group of a dozen or so architects, engineers and designers from around the world will e-mail the drawings to each other, squint at their computer screens and type furious arguments. Thus is the pecking order of the world's tallest buildings mysteriously decided.

"A condition like this is always hotly debated even within our organization, I can tell you that much," Klemencic said.

Whether it sets records or not, the tower's profile in Chicago's skyline will fill a void between the Aon Center and Hancock that is as wide as a gap-toothed child's smile.

It will stand out, too, because its glass and polished steel exterior will glint with sunlight, which Chicago's other three giants make no use of.

But the story of the Trump tower's silhouette says as much about the forces behind urban landscapes as it does about the buildings that make them up.

As with Chicago's ubiquitous flower planters and wrought-iron fences, Daley serves two roles--he is both chief politician and chief planner, and he micromanages design details that other big-city mayors typically relegate to subordinates.

And though it is unclear where he hit upon rooftop spires, Daley clearly liked the idea.

After the original, blocky designs for the riverfront site of the former Chicago Sun-Times building, 401 N. Wabash Ave., were scrapped, the mayor was among those who saw the pinnacle above the redrawn version of the Trump tower and liked it.

Trump was less impressed with the spire in the redrawn design.

"I wanted to shave it for two reasons," he said. "I'd save money and I didn't like the original top of the building."

Plans for the tower--including the off-center spire--had been approved by the city in May, but as recently as October, the mogul's plans for his Chicago tower left the spire off. That changed shortly after visiting Daley's office on Dec. 7.

On a day that produced the heaviest rain in a month, Trump was late for an appearance at Marshall Field's on State Street. Starting shortly after noon, he signed boxes of his signature men's fragrance, called "Donald Trump," as he was greeted by a crowd estimated in the hundreds, said Andrea Schwartz, spokeswoman for Marshall Field's in Chicago.

Then, still whiffing of cologne, he and his entourage climbed into a sedan in the early afternoon and were whisked the two blocks to City Hall.

"I spoke to the mayor and suggested that I didn't like the way the spire was and said, `What's the purpose of the spire?'" Trump recalled. "He said, `Could you go back and give it another shot?'"

Trump agreed, sending his team to work through a few designs.

"They worked out a version that was, sadly, more expensive," he said. But brightening, he hastened to add: "As soon as I saw this, I said, `Let's do it.' It was so beautiful."

- - -

Building would trump many of city's tallest

Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago was orginally planned to stand 1,125 feet tall, but an agreement between Mayor Richard Daley and Donald Trump would add a 235-foot spire atop the building.

cool, but is that spire considered part of the structure of the building i.e. will it be considered in the official height. If you have any new renders that would be cool.

I doubt it will be considered part of the actual height unless they are floors (people can easily access them) i.e. CN tower, not actually considered a building, tallest freestanding "structure".

spires are counted to the accual height, that how petronas were taller than the sears

Excellent stuff, good to see Chicago get another supertall building!!

Poor reporting, though - inconsistant:
It would make Trump's skyscraper 90 feet taller than the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, which is, after the Sears, the nation's runner-up.
If you count the spire on the Empire State Building the way that the writer has counted the spire on this new Trump Tower, the Empire State Building's height is a much more impressive 1472ft.

I'm from the other side of the pond and even I noticed that one!!

I agree with Trump, I don't like the spire idea. I think buildings look better with a "flat" top like the Sears Tower, old World Trade Center, Union Square 7 or the Library Tower in Los Angeles.

^Agree

Though if it were a spire like Chryler's I would beg to differ

Daley is my hero, twisting arms to get what he wants. Thats a real gangster for you.

Excellent stuff, good to see Chicago get another supertall building!!

Poor reporting, though - inconsistant:

If you count the spire on the Empire State Building the way that the writer has counted the spire on this new Trump Tower, the Empire State Building's height is a much more impressive 1472ft.

I'm from the other side of the pond and even I noticed that one!!
ESB has an antenna; the fat spire is already counted in total height.

i side with trump on this one. i don't want a spire on this building and make it gain cheap height. if they do it, people would just call it a cheater since sears, aon, and john hancock does not contain spires at all. without a spire, trump chicago would be shorter than all three, but the spire would knock aon and john hancock down 1 place. what a cheap way to win over 2 of the 3 international style classics of chitown...

daley should not get a say on this. trump's already got an antenna planned for the tower that'd play the role of the spire just as good, but daley has to barge in and mess with his plans. im not a big admirer of trump, but daley's being such an selfish bully in this case.

Daley get's a say in everything and anything in Chicago, and that's the way people like it here.

Sorry if I missed anything said above and if this sounds stupid.... but any renderings?

NWSide.

word :cheers:

could we get to see the old renderings for those who forgot what the building looks like?
I remember seeing it a long time ago, and I know I liked it, though I don't remember what it looks like anymore

^ Oh, I was reffering to of teh redesign... It is a redesign right?

I think Donald should add more floors, not more spire. Bring WTB status back to America buddy!!!

^Agree

Though if it were a spire like Chryler's I would beg to differ

Some buildings look better with a spire and some don't. The Chrysler, Empire State and Petronas Buildings look great with spires.

Trumps Tower looks better with a flat top but that's the way he said he wanted it in the first place. :)

I agree with Trump, I don't like the spire idea. I think buildings look better with a "flat" top like the Sears Tower, old World Trade Center, Union Square 7 or the Library Tower in Los Angeles.

How many ppl ACTUALLY view the Sears as a flat topped building??? Not many. If you search for pics without the antennas the sears looks weird.

Rendering
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v712/NapHsu/TrumpTower-001.jpg

the tower really is great, but I have nothing against the spire, it looks pretty good too.
though again Chicago might have too many spires...

The building would seem incomplete without the spire, it was incorporated in the original design and it should stay that way. As for Chicago having "too many spires" I can only think of two buildings that include them...

I like it, but the tower itself looks different from what I thought it was. I thought it was more rounded on the left side?

I'm mixed on the new rendering. It looks "okay." but regardless, great news for Chicago.

I just noticed that Chicago now blows NY away in the number of skyscrapers.

Something like 7 or 8 of the top 10 tallest in America is now in Chicago.

Not number, just height of the tallest^

The rendering below is not a new rendering... This rendering was released in late 2003 or early 2004. The finalized rendering has yet to be released, you guys need to re-read the article in the first post of this thread more carefully. Hopefully the finilized renderings will be released soon.

And as mentioned, not that many Chicago buildings have spires.

Sears Tower---anteanna(not counted as part of height)
John Hancock Center---anteanna(not counted as part of height)
AT&T Corporate Center---spire(counted in the height)
Prudential Plaza---spire(counted in the height)

personally, i don't think the transformation of the building's antenna into a spire is going to do much to the building. i mean, a carefully designed antenna can still serve just as well of an architectural pinnacle as a spire.

i also agree that chicago is a pretty darn spire-free city. of the buildings over 200m in chicago, only at&t corp center, 2 prudential plaza, and chicago titles & trusts building have spires, and among them, only at&t corp center have spires that are really overpowering in terms of looks.

dont mind the spire at all suits the look of the tower

hopefully its not like the freedom tower..

Awesome building. I love that spire

I think the spire is a great addition, but they should make it less antenna looking, something more grander and bigger like on the Bank of America building in Atlanta. It should be a pyramidish thing, that actually looks like part of the building, then I can actually say we have something taller than the Empire State Building.

The only rendering I can see is the old one where it still has the antenna. I think the old tower looks pretty funky actually... lets hope the new one is a step forward.

Thats it, I'm moving to Chi-town lol

Trump may aspire to top Petronas Towers

February 24, 2005

BY DAVID ROEDER Business Reporter


Reaching just a little higher for international acclaim, Donald Trump is pondering whether to make his new Chicago building taller than even the twin Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

It's a matter of how tall to make the spire for his new Trump International Hotel & Tower at 401 N. Wabash, the former site of the Sun-Times Building.

With his architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Trump is looking at spire configurations that would qualify the building as being taller than Sears Tower, and hence the tallest in the United States.

But a top source at the Trump Organization said the developer might aim higher -- literally -- and try to top Petronas as well. There's only a 33-foot height difference between Sears and the Petronas towers.

"We are studying the possibility of a building taller than Sears and possibly beyond that," the source said. "The decision should be made over the next month or so."

Trump is not shooting for the title of world's tallest, currently in the hands of the 1,670-foot Taipei 101 building in Taiwan. Exceeding Petronas in official measurements would require something at least 1,483 feet tall.

None of the spire alternatives involves increasing the size of the occupied portion of the new condo and hotel complex, where Trump has reported more than $600 million in sales. The spire would be ornamental but technically part of the structure and therefore figure in the height measurement.

Current plans put the 92-story building at 1,360 feet, some 90 feet short of the Sears mark.

The source said the various spire plans could add from $2 million to $5 million to the cost of the $750 million project. City approval would be needed to change the height, but the source said City Hall already has offered positive reviews.

Spokeswoman Connie Buscemi of the city's planning department denied matters have gone that far but confirmed enthusiasm for the idea. "We haven't seen the design yet, but we'd certainly look forward to it and be amenable to changes," she said.

When conceiving the project in 2001, Trump had the "world's tallest" title in mind but abandoned that goal after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that year.

Fears about skyscrapers being terrorist targets have subsided since then and buyer demand for tall buildings has increased, the Trump source said. "The tall building is back in vogue. It's like fashion. It's like dress sizes," he said.

All claims to height records, however, would be shattered if a proposed 1,776-foot building at Ground Zero in Manhattan wins approval from New York authorities and is built.

PETRONAS TOWERS
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
Stories: 88
Height: 1,483 feet

TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & TOWER
CHICAGO
Stories: 92 (current proposal)
Height: 1,360 (current proposal

Trump aspires to new heights
With a taller spire, tycoon's skyscraper could overtake Sears Tower to become tallest in North America

By James Janega and Gary Washburn
Tribune staff reporters
Published February 24, 2005

First Donald Trump wanted to do away with a decorative spire atop his hotel and condominium tower on the Chicago River. Then Mayor Richard Daley asked him to put it back on the building's plans.

Now The Donald, seemingly unable to resist associating his name with the word "tallest," is setting his sights on an even taller spire, one that could make his Chicago tower the tallest skyscraper in North America.

On Wednesday, City Hall said it was thinking big, too.

Connie Buscemi, a spokeswoman for the city's planning department, confirmed that Trump and the city are in discussions about a taller tower.

"We have not seen the proposal yet, but if this indeed is what they are planning to submit, we certainly are amenable to it," said Buscemi.

The proposed changes to the design come as demolition crews knock down the final pieces of the former Chicago Sun-Times building on the site.

The idea marks only the latest major turnaround in the tower's height and shape. Less than two weeks ago, Trump's architects said the building with the spire would be no taller than 1,360 feet.

Now that height could grow, creeping back toward Trump's first plan to build the world's tallest building.

That original 2,000-foot tower design was dramatically scaled back to a blocky 78-story high-rise after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

And as recently as last year, he appeared satisfied to have a sleek tower of 1,125 feet, a design 2 feet shorter than the John Hancock Center, which would have made Trump's tower the city's fourth-tallest building.

But Trump is now less concerned that a tall building would be a target and is aiming for the sky again. For Daley, it would be a trophy as well, a building taller than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower built in 1974 during his father's administration.

Officials involved in the project, speaking on condition of anonymity, said new plans would extend a spire at least 326 feet above the building, outreaching the Sears Tower, currently the nation's tallest.

Communications antennas do not count in a building's overall height, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the international arbiter of height rules. The council counts decorative spires as part of a building's height, however. A spire that doesn't look much different from an antenna would just have to surpass the roofline of the Sears Tower for the building to be taller.

Another version for the top of the Trump tower would add at least another 33 feet above that, bringing the top of the spire to at least 1,484 feet, a foot taller than the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, currently the second-tallest in the world.

The building's neighbors have concerns, however. Like most of Trump's negotiations with City Hall, plans that would redraw Chicago's skyline have been kept out of the public eye.

Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who represents the ward where the new skyscraper will be built, said he knows nothing about the proposed increase in height and expressed frustration with the way Trump has handled the project.

"Trump goes ahead and does anything he wants," the alderman said.

Natarus said neither Trump nor City Hall has talked to owners in the neighboring condo high-rise at 405 N. Wabash Ave.

"I am concerned about the height and how they will control density, how they will control traffic, and whether or not they extend [their] garden onto the property of 405 N. Wabash," Natarus said.

If he decides he doesn't like the final plan, Natarus said he has options.

"Even though it might end up in litigation, I can file an ordinance repealing the whole thing," he said, stopping short of saying he would. "I don't know if it will pass, but I can file an ordinance."

Should Trump seek "administrative changes" in the project, such as a height alteration, "I'm in a position to challenge some of that," Natarus said.

The proposed changes happen against a flurry of tallest-building construction around the globe. After booms in the United States--mostly in New York and Chicago--during the 1920s and 1970s, Asian countries and Persian Gulf states have flexed their muscles over the last decade.

Because of that, the world's tallest building are safely out of reach even for The Donald and The Mayor: Taipei 101 is 1,667 feet tall. Looming on the horizon in 2009 is the Burj Dubai, under construction in the United Arab Emirates, which is expected to top 2,000 feet.

Even if Trump decides to top the Sears Tower and the city grants its approval, his Chicago skyscraper might not be the nation's tallest for long.

The Freedom Tower at ground zero in New York, designed with the symbolic height of 1,776 feet to evoke the year the Declaration of Independence was signed, is scheduled to be completed in 2009, said Elizabeth Kubany, a spokeswoman for the New York City office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed the project.

Trump's tower, designed by Skidmore's Chicago office, is expected to be finished in 2007.

Yet the top of the Freedom Tower is shrouded in uncertainty. Lead designer David Childs of Skidmore's New York office has made clear his distaste for the 276-foot spire atop the skyscraper, which was forced on him by New York Gov. George Pataki after Childs and ground zero master planner Daniel Libeskind engaged in a public spat about the tower's design.

Engineering and financing problems appear to threaten the Freedom Tower spire. Larry Silverstein, the tower's developer, has objected to paying for a network of cables atop the skyscraper and said recently of the tower's upper reaches: "We're in a vacuum in regard to that part of the building."

Freedom Tower would be 1,500 feet tall without the spire.

That likely would be taller than Trump's Chicago tower--unless, of course, Trump decided to make his spire even taller.

Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin contributed to this report

Great! I never understood the spire versus occupied top height battle issue. You know this:


:tiasd:


If a spire gets higher than the roof of a tower with full occupied height, it is taller! It's how it has always been done. Only after the Sears did this get taboo. (And by spire I mean decorative spire, not just an antenna) If Trump overtakes the top of the Petronas, he will have the second tallest building in the world in my mind.

I say we go to roof heights. This spire business is getting out of hand.

But that's how things have always been done; Chrysler, Empire, Petronas, Taipei 101! Not including antennas, if someone puts a spire an inch above your flat topped building, deep shit. Am I wrong?

I think that a spire can often enhance the appearance of a building (as it does in this case), but it still shouldn't be included in the height for purposes of comparison with other buildings.

I think that a spire can often enhance the appearance of a building (as it does in this case), but it still shouldn't be included in the height for purposes of comparison with other buildings.

agreed. that said, i would like to see trump have a spire taller than petronas - just to spite the cheating bastards!

:D

Trump's spire plan up in air for a while

By James Janega
Tribune staff reporter
Published February 25, 2005

Donald Trump, in Chicago to talk with financial backers of his proposed hotel and condominium tower, said Thursday it could be as long as two months before final plans are agreed on for the spire that will determine the look and height of the top the building.

Drilling for the building's foundation caissons is under way, despite the remaining questions between Trump and City Hall.

Trump has been involved in protracted negotiations with the city about the look of the top of the building. Mayor Richard Daley has said he favors designs for the building that include a spire, and Trump recently agreed.

Questions remain on how high it will be. On Wednesday, the city said Trump has been in negotiation with Chicago officials about whether to add to the 1,125-foot design a spire tall enough to surpass the height of the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, perhaps by as much as 100 feet.

"I think we'll make a decision along with the representatives of the city and the mayor over the next 60 days as to whether or not we want to go to the extra height," Trump said Thursday at the construction site. "It will be a little bit different top. It builds up--not very much different--and the spire would be taller."

In addition to the decorative spire on top, two extra floors recently were added to the original plan without increasing the building's height. Building innovations in the design by the Chicago office of architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill eliminated the need to place concrete floor slabs atop steel beams.

If the city approves the new plans, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago would join the tallest buildings in the city, well above the 1,136-foot Aon Center and the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center.

It would be comparable in its vertical reach, if not scale, to the Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building. New York City's 1,250-foot Empire State Building is, after the Sears, the nation's runner-up.

Negotiations over the spire would have no effect on demolition and foundation work at the site where the Chicago Sun-Times building once stood at 401 N. Wabash Ave.

Some $600 million has been raised for the proposed $750 million, 92-story residential office tower, Trump said.

"The caissons are very beefy caissons," he said. "The caissons are enough to support whatever we put on top."

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

'It builds up...and the spire will be different.'

Doesn't this suggest the possibility that the tower itself, quite apart from the spire, might be extended ?

I've seen pictures of the building both with and without the spire. And I honestly think it looks better without the spire on top. Anyways, how many 1,000 footers does Chicago have including this one when its done? 4?

I say we go to roof heights. This spire business is getting out of hand.

Spire heights. . . roof heights. . . either way it would only amount to a pissing contest. . . what does it matter if Chicago has "X" amount of buildings over a certain height. . . or if it has the tallest building in North America (which it already does so I'm not sure what they're point in saying so is). . . it doesn't matter to the average person on the street who looks up and sees a tall building. . . the only reason they're talking about raising the height to top Sears would be to top Petronas. . . in which case is a good thing just to show everyone how stupid these numbers games are in the first place. . .

^^^Exactly. I think alot of people would agree that the official building height should be the height of the ROOF. I still refer to the Sears Tower as the world's tallest building. What's stopping someone from constructing a building with a 500m roof height and then popping a 500m "spire" on the top so (in theory) it surpasses the still unconfirmed height of the Burj Dubai? This BS of spire building to claim the WTB title is ludicrious.

So would anyone like to take a stab at my question above ? Doesn't it suggest that Trump is aware of the speciousness of attching a spire to gain the title ?

Trump said: 'It builds up...and the spire will be taller.'

I've seen pictures of the building both with and without the spire. And I honestly think it looks better without the spire on top. Anyways, how many 1,000 footers does Chicago have including this one when its done? 4?

There are 4 that exist right now, there will be 6 with Trump Tower and Waterview.

I think I'm going to end this tallest building race by putting a 2000m spire on my house. It will clearly be the worlds tallest 'building' then. :)

I think I'm going to end this tallest building race by putting a 2000m spire on my house. It will clearly be the worlds tallest 'building' then. :)

^^^ :hahaha: can you imagine seeing a house with a 6,000 foot spire on its roof? Hahaha that would be funny as hell.

So there are four 1,000 footers right now? What are they? And when are the WaterView and Trump towers supposed to be finished? And where in the skyline would they be?

^Well I shouldn't have to do your homework for you, but here ya go:

Sears Tower - 1,450 ft
Aon Center - 1,136 ft
John Hancock Center - 1,127 ft
AT&T Corporate Center - 1,007 ft (spire)

Trump & Waterview are expected to be completed in 2007/2008. . . they will be somehwere in the middle of the Chicago "skyline". . .

When I first saw this thread in the forum index, all I could see was "Trump Chicago Grows 235 feet" so I thought maybe the building height had increased.

^Well I shouldn't have to do your homework for you, but here ya go:

You didn't have to do my homework for me. Thanks for the information though.

When I first saw this thread in the forum index, all I could see was "Trump Chicago Grows 235 feet" so I thought maybe the building height had increased.

That is the implication of Trump's statement: 'It builds up a little...and the spire will be taller.'

But I can't get a Chicagoan to comment on it.

^^thats because no final plan has been released yet. No one really knows how high the building will go. There's talk of it going higher then the petronas towers, but as of the last official statement, the building is 92 floors and 1,360 feet tall. Any other news so far is just speculation.

So when is it going to start construction?

^^thats because no final plan has been released yet. No one really knows how high the building will go. There's talk of it going higher then the petronas towers, but as of the last official statement, the building is 92 floors and 1,360 feet tall. Any other news so far is just speculation.

Thanks, but I'm simply drawing attention to the apparent implication (apparent in Trump's quote) that the *tower itself* might be extended, to say nothing of the spire.

So when is it going to start construction?

any day now, the caisson drills are on site and they have already begun drilling caissons for the rebuilding of the wabash viaduct which is coinciding with the work on trump's building. it's only a matter of time before they finish drilling the viaduct caissons and turn their attention to the tower caissons. it could be a week, it could be two, but proper construction will finally start on this long-anticipated project very, very soon.





That is the implication of Trump's statement: 'It builds up a little...and the spire will be taller.'

But I can't get a Chicagoan to comment on it.
because none of us have seen the final renderings, dale. victor, our information slueth, said that the final renderings should be released in about 2 months, so until then, it's hard to speculate. maybe the roof height will be increased, maybe not. the only people who would likely know are the folks on the design team, and unfortunately the don't spill their secrets on this forum too often ;).

^ Damned design folks ! :bash:

Don't they realize they're beholden to us ?! :wink2:

ARCHITECTURE

Aspire to greatness
Trump's spire could be a thing of breathtaking beauty or end up a giant, ill-proportioned folly.

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published February 27, 2005

You had to wonder when Donald Trump's Chicago skyscraper would descend into a circus. Last week, it showed signs of doing just that when city officials and Trump sources revealed that The Donald may stretch the spire atop his tower to potentially absurd lengths -- at least 359 feet, or nearly as big as the entire Wrigley Building. That would be tall enough to surpass Sears Tower as the nation's tallest building and even edge the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia as the world's second tallest building.

Let's run the numbers, as Mr. "You're Fired" has been known to do.

The roof of Trump's hotel-condominium tower, which will be built on the riverfront site formerly occupied by the seven-story Chicago Sun-Times Building, is supposed to reach 1,125 feet. A couple of weeks ago, after the Tribune revealed that Mayor Richard M. Daley had insisted that Trump retain an ornamental spire atop the tower, Trump's architects at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said the spire would rise another 235 feet for a total height of 1,360 feet.

Then, last week, the news hit the front pages that the tower might grow to at least 1,451 feet -- a foot taller than Sears -- or at least 1,484 feet -- a foot taller than Petronas. The "Beat Petronas" option would make the spire at least 359 feet tall, which would be -- gasp! -- nearly as tall as the 398-foot Wrigley. The spires atop Petronas, by comparison, measure a modest 241 feet, though it is difficult to call anything associated with such behemoths "modest."

Beyond the giddy numbers game lies a troubling issue: Is Donald Trump's spire going to be a thing of breathtaking beauty or is it going to be a giant, ill-proportioned folly whose impossible-to-hide agenda is to write The Donald's name in the Guinness Book of Records?

This being Chicago, where the deals are invariably cut before the mock public debate proceeds, we have no idea which outcome we're in for. Trump still refuses to make his drawings public because he doesn't want to alienate the all-powerful mayor, who hasn't signed off on the drawings yet. Planning department officials said last week that City Hall would be "amenable" to a taller spire.

You know we've entered a new realm of the bizarre when Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who has let his downtown ward be overrun by block-headed concrete condo high-rises, suddenly begins sounding like the voice of sensible planning. He was bellowing last week that Trump "goes ahead and does anything he wants" without consulting the people in a neighboring high-rise -- or, of course, him.

Forget Trump's aura of celebrity and his "Apprentice" reality TV show. The paramount issue in Trump's Chicago apprenticeship has been, and always will be, the quality of his skyscraper, not its quantity; its aesthetic aspiration, not its yardstick height; its impact on the skyline, not Trump's bottomline. Which begs the question: What makes a good spire?

In the simplest sense, a spire is a decorative exclamation point. Its primary task is to culminate a tall building's journey from the everyday realm of the ground to the sacred realm of the sky. The church spire and its smaller cousin, the pinnacle, did this long before skyscrapers poked their heads into the clouds. The architects of early skyscrapers, among them the Tribune Tower and the Woolworth Building in New York City, clearly borrowed from such precedents to compose their "cathedrals of commerce."

Just how a spire is composed, however, is everything.

There is an enormous difference between the prosaic act of jamming a spike atop a building, which is what you get in such skyline duds as Two Prudential Plaza (a conspicuously under-detailed Chrysler Building wannabe), and the poetic art of making a graceful transition from a base shaped like a square or circle to a sharp-edged point.

The Chrysler's over-the-top top, a series of sunbursts accentuated by triangular windows that rise to a glistening spire, accomplishes this feat with dazzling exuberance. It's the ultimate party hat, the perfect statement for a glamorous city like New York. For all its romance and irrationalism, it stops just short, as The New Yorker's architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, has written, of being laughable.

For Trump and Skidmore's lead architect, Adrian Smith, that is the great risk: That the Trump tower spire will cross the line that separates respectability from laughability and become a gawky, ill-proportioned freak. Yet there is also, truth be told, an opportunity in Trump's decision to aspire to new heights.

Properly handled, a taller spire actually could improve the proportions of a tower that still looks chunky from some angles. And it might etch an iconic silhouette, one that would say "Chicago" with the same grace and power delivered by such knock-out Art Deco towers as the Chicago Board of Trade. The question is how to do that without offering up a bloated piece of postmodern nostalgia.

In the end, Smith's search for style matters much more than Trump's reach for the sky. The "record," in any event, will be a mere consolation prize -- the nation's tallest building, not the world's tallest, because there is no chance of catching the current No. 1, the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan. Even the nation's tallest building title might not last long, given that the Freedom Tower at ground zero is supposed to be 1,776 feet tall and is due to be finished in 2009, two years after Trump.

Why should The Donald go for an inconsequential, sure-to-be short-lived record if it would deform his skyscraper and cost him several million dollars extra in the bargain? He's got a skyscraper-size ego, of course. Yet when it comes to overbearing skyline supremacy, Chicago has been there and done that. The issue remains superlative architecture, not a big building.

I hope it doesnt turn out bad. I dont think it will though, hopefully they come to their senses and dont build an eyesore. Trump has has good WTB building designs before, it sucks they he has to try to do it wiht a spire now. Why cant be actually make the building taller?

That Tribune - Kamin article is way off base. Did this guy do any research before he started pontificating? Typical critic.

Any article I've read on this quotes Trump as saying he didn't want a spire AT ALL. He didn't think that a spire would look good on his building. The Daley wanted a spire (for whatever reason) and Trump didn't. After Trump saw some architectural workups he warmed up a bit to the idea, but this is not the case of Trump simply seeking a high spire to boost his ego.

Making your building taller than the Sears tower or the Petronas towers by 1-2 feet is just plain stupid. I can't wait for the Burj Dubai to be completed. We'll finally have a building that is the world's tallest in all categories.

Burj Al Arab uses spires as well. It is no better than any other "cheater".

Burj Al Arab uses spires as well. It is no better than any other "cheater".


That may be, but even if they didn't use a spire over there, the building would claim the world's tallest in all catagories. So you could say that they are cheating and don't really have to.

Burj Dubai has a spire also but the building is freaking tall even without a spire. It beats everything else with or without spire.

Making your building taller than the Sears tower or the Petronas towers by 1-2 feet is just plain stupid. I can't wait for the Burj Dubai to be completed. We'll finally have a building that is the world's tallest in all categories.

Since you're obviosly new to the forum it should be noted that the architect for both Burj Dubai and Trump Chicago is the same person. . . none of us are kidding ourselves here by thinking that the spire for Trump is anything other than a silly numbers game. . .

Making your building taller than the Sears tower or the Petronas towers by 1-2 feet is just plain stupid. I can't wait for the Burj Dubai to be completed. We'll finally have a building that is the world's tallest in all categories.

Since you're obviosly new to the forum it should be noted that the architect for both Burj Dubai and Trump Chicago is the same person. . . none of us are kidding ourselves here by thinking that the spire for Trump is anything other than a silly numbers game. . .

Except for the fact that Trump himself seems to have implied that the tower itself may be extended, apart from whatever is done with the spire.

In any case, we'll all know soon enough.

In any case, we'll all know soon enough.

That's true. . . but it's also true that the outcome will be any less trivial. . .

Trump dumps lofty goal for tower's spire

By Blair Kamin, Tribune architecture critic. Tribune staff reporter Gary Washburn contributed to this report
Published March 9, 2005

Donald Trump's spire isn't going higher.

The flamboyant developer and reality TV star said Tuesday he no longer wants to construct the nation's tallest building in Chicago.

Last month, Trump caved in to Mayor Richard Daley's demand that he keep a decorative spire atop his Chicago tower. Trump then set his sights on an even taller spire, one that might make his building top Sears Tower as the nation's tallest. Instead, Trump said Tuesday that he would retain the spire's previous height, making his tower about 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot-tall Sears.

The reasons: Plans for the extended spire looked awkward, Trump said. And some people who have bought units in the 92-story hotel and condominium tower expressed concern about living in the building, apparently because its greater height could make it a terrorist target.

"I don't want to change the profile of the building, both physically or psychologically," Trump said in a telephone interview from his New York City office. "What difference does it make? [The record] isn't what it used to be."

Asked if that means he is scared of terrorism, Trump replied: "I'm never scared."

But he acknowledged that after the news hit the front pages that he might construct the nation's tallest building, his staff called 10 people who have bought units in the building, formally known as Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. Three, he said, preferred that the building's height remain lower than Sears'.

"That's a pretty good percentage--30 percent," he said. "That, carried forward, would make 30 percent of the people less happy."

Trump reports he has sold about 65 percent of the units in the skyscraper, now under construction on the riverfront Wabash Avenue site formerly occupied by the squat, seven-story Chicago Sun-Times Building. With 35 percent of the units left to sell, Trump made the right choice, one Chicago real estate developer said.

"I certainly think there are buyers out there at the high-end who would prefer not being in ... a building that draws attention to itself for unnecessary reasons," said Tom Weeks, president of LR Development, which has developed such high-profile luxury skyscrapers as the Park Tower at 800 N. Michigan Ave.

Not building the extended spire will save him about $1.5 million dollars in construction costs, Trump said.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said Daley "understands it's a business decision."

The Daley administration had welcomed Trump's desire to shoot for having the nation's tallest building, saying it would be "amenable" to such a plan. But Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who represents the ward where the skyscraper is being built, threatened to file an ordinance blocking the tower if Trump sought "administrative changes" to the project, such as altering the height.

Tuesday's development was the latest switch in a skyline drama that has had more twists and turns than Trump's reality TV show, "The Apprentice."

Trump originally planned a 2,000-foot tower, but scaled it back to a blocky 78-story high-rise after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Last year, he appeared satisfied to have a sleek tower of 1,125 feet, two feet shorter than the John Hancock Center, which would have made Trump's tower the city's fourth-tallest building. After no one lined up to buy antenna space atop the building, Trump decided last year to ditch the spire.

But Daley urged the developer to put it back. And last month, when the Daley-Trump face-off was revealed, Trump's architects, the Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, said the spire would reach to a height of 1,360 feet, or 235 feet taller than the building's roof.

Topping Sears, as City Hall suggested the developer might do two weeks ago, would have meant extending the spire at least 326 feet above the roof.

But those extensions made the spire "a little bit gangly" and "very convoluted," Trump said.

Stressing that he has sold more than $600 million of units in the building, Trump said, "I am very superstitious about changing things that are very successful."

The spire, he said, would remain at the "original height," though it is "more beautiful" now than when it was largely a structural feature designed to hold up an antenna. A 1,360-tower would be Chicago's second tallest building, shorter than Sears, but taller than the Hancock and the 1,136-foot Aon Center.

Architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill could not be reached for comment.

Communications antennas do not count in a building's overall height, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the international arbiter of height rules. The council counts decorative spires as part of a building's height, however. The world's tallest building, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, is 1,667 feet tall.

Business
Trump curbs his soaring ambition

March 9, 2005

BY DAVID ROEDER Business Reporter


On second thought, and maybe third or fourth, Donald Trump won't be playing with the height of his Chicago building after all.

Trump said Tuesday that he's decided against manipulating the building's spire to capture the title of "nation's tallest'' or "almost world's tallest'' building. He said he'll stick with the current design for his hotel and condominium development under construction at 401 N. Wabash.

That means the 92-story building will top out, with a relatively modest spire, at 1,360 feet, some 90 feet shorter than Sears Tower. Trump said last month he would consider a taller, more costly spire to beat Sears. Another option was beating the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Malaysia, currently No. 2 in international height standings.

"My building has just been so successful, why change it?'' Trump said. He acknowledged that renderings of the building with an elongated spire weren't pleasing. "The massing wasn't as nice,'' Trump said of the design by Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.

Trump also said some buyers urged him not to make a change. No one voiced a concern that a taller building could be a terrorism target, he said.

The new Trump International Hotel & Tower, which replaces the old Sun-Times Building, has reported sales of 70 percent of its units, or a total of $600 million.




Maybe this means that the design will be released sooner rather than later :).

The nation's tallest building belongs in NYC. So I'm glad Trump changed his mind.

C'mon FREEDOM TOWER!

^^ Umm, Freedom Tower is much less impressive IMO than Trump Chicago will be and it still will not count as tallest to me with it's huge cage on top. I am glad that the spire isn't being lengthened because it would throw everyone off.

The nation's tallest building belongs in NYC. So I'm glad Trump changed his mind.


regardless of what trump decided to do with the spire atop his chicago tower, the nation's tallest building, the sears tower, has resided in chicago since 1974. so i don't know why you would be happy with the decision by trump to go with a shorter spire, as the nation's tallest building will still remain in chicago for the time being. there was never any speculation that trump was considering a spire massive enough to surpass the eventual 1,776 ft. of NYC's freedom tower.

it was purely an intra-city battle of whether or not trump would go tall enough to surpass sears. freedom tower was never part of the equation.

so now you know, and knowing is half the battle..............

- edit

OLD RENDERING
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/554/6324chicago_tower.jpg

NEW RENDERING
http://www.pbase.com/temper/image/41045231/original.jpg

The new rendering isn't the clearest. It was scanned from the Real Estate section of the paper. Con you notice the differences?

I dont see any diffrences in the two above posted renderings.

I dont see any diffrences in the two above posted renderings.

Look closely at the crown. The bands around the top of the tower. Notice the vertical elements that have been added. They're different, the changes are just minor.

Look closely at the crown. The bands around the top of the tower. Notice the vertical elements that have been added. They're different, the changes are just minor.
I think I like the top (older?) one better. The crown was what "capped" my visual interest. It's pretty plain jane without the detail on the crown IMO.

It's a beautiful tower, with such a nice shape almost wrapped right around the canal.

It's very sympathetic to the location and the facade looks great, providing such a light and reflective adjunct to the canal scene.

The jury for me is out on the spire however - it's unecessary and while it doesn't bastardise the design as another tower's case, it is unecessary and if it was to be included I'd rather see something a little more stronger and bulkier -the tower is stocky enough in to accept a bolder spire if it is so desired.

ARCHITECTURE

Getting to the point: A tower's aspirations

By Blair Kamin
Published March 25, 2005

Call it "tinkering with the top."

These computer renderings show the long gestation period of Donald Trump's 92-story hotel-condominium tower in Chicago -- in particular, the development of its controversial spire.

The seven-year sequence includes the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Mayor Richard Daley's edict that Trump retain an ornamental spire.

Though the latest -- and apparently final -- version of the spire appears below, the tale of Trump's tower is far from complete.

Because of the tower's scale-shattering height and bulk along the Chicago River, we still don't know whether it will be a graceful urban presence, the ultimate McMansion or some combination of the two.

The expected opening: 2007 or 2008.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2005-03/16854196.jpg

I like the spire on this one.

With long or short spire, it looks fantastic either way.

U know....I think all the changes look unnoticable.

Rooted in bedrock, reaching for the sky
Trump tower will go far above --and far below-- its neighbors

By James Janega
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 27, 2005

The tower will soar above the skyline, but right now there is only an open space by the Chicago River, a home to construction equipment and a matter of fascination to neighbors.

Construction of the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago will offer a three-year spectacle of modern construction as the building climbs, level by level, above its neighbors and into the ranks of the world's tallest buildings. When done, it will stand as tall as the John Hancock Center even before its controversial spire is added.

In full view of onlookers, the former Chicago Sun-Times building disappeared from its longtime spot in a matter of months.

Now, passersby watch as drills the size of telephone booths spin into muddy ground where the newspaper offices once stood, spewing damp earth into piles that steam briefly in the chilly air.

Unlike Chicago's other three giants--the Sears Tower, the Aon Center and the Hancock building--the Trump tower will be supported not by a framework of steel but by a spine and outriggers of concrete.

Without high-quality concrete, the structure would never support the building's 360,000-ton bulk--the weight of four aircraft carriers.

Without new chemical processes that make the wet cement more fluid or new pumping techniques to move it, it could never be pumped 92 stories and 1,125 feet into the air.

Without concrete, the building could never climb so high and still stay so thin.

The footprint of Trump's building will be 348 feet by 135 feet--not much bigger than the squat Sun-Times building.

"On a steel building, it would have had to be much wider," said William Baker, a structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architectural firm that designed both buildings.

"We wouldn't have been able to put a steel building on this site."

When the building is finished, a skin of stainless steel and glass will reflect the sun. The tower's shape will mirror the buildings around it, its faceted setbacks nodding to the 1920 Wrigley Building and monolithic 1973 IBM Building next door.

The building's designers are using the tower's concrete-swollen weight to defy heavy breezes. By making it too heavy to tip easily, the designers have pitted one of the oldest enemies of skyscrapers, gravity, against its other foe, the wind.

In addition, the setbacks and rounded edges will prevent vortices from organizing into mini-tornadoes, reducing the wind's power.

To further secure it, the building will be cantilevered into a section of the Earth's crust, a limestone formation 420 million years old and 110 feet underground, so the building will touch sky and bedrock at the same time.

Though it will outreach its neighbors, the Trump tower must start far beneath them, on pillars extending like stilts into the ground. The holes for those 4-foot-wide pillars are being drilled now. Under the building, every 30 feet around its perimeter, steel-reinforced cement will be poured.

On top of that, an 8,400-ton concrete pad the size of a river barge will be built. From that pad the building's spine will rise, climbing as Wabash Avenue is rebuilt between the IBM Building and the future Trump tower.

The spine will consist of five gigantic concrete walls, each shaped like an I-beam standing on its 45-foot-wide end. At about eight stories, the exterior columns will begin to follow, with a concrete slab between the columns at each story for a floor.

It will climb like this: Spine, columns, slab. Spine, columns, slab. Eight to 10 floors below the highest slab, the curtain wall will rise on the outside of the structure. As the building climbs, it will narrow, the spine dwindling to two parallel I-beams from five.

As the building takes root, it has become an attraction for the curious. The two-story-deep construction pit extends toward the IBM Building, and a nearby sidewalk has become an observation gallery.

Crane platforms with their coils of heavy cable are at eye level. Viewers see the tops of bulldozers.

One day, the workers will point to the tall shape in the city skyline with a sense of ownership.

Earthmovers heap dirt into piles. The heads of hydraulic dinosaurs bob into the rubble, crushing and pulling scrap metal in their jaws. Rolled steel dangling a dozen feet above the ground is lowered into rows. Sounds echo from the pit.

Above, people watch.

"It looks weird," said bicycle messenger Lee Towne, 47, of Chicago.

"It looks like a whole different site."

- - -

Designed to fit

When built in downtown Chicago, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago will be one of the tallest concrete buildings in the world.

Because the Trump tower needed to fit within the site of the former Chicago Sun-Times, architects chose to build with concrete instead of steel. Concrete allows them to build the building taller without making it wider. Using fluid cement and new construction techniques, workers can pump cement hundreds of feet up into the air.

ADVANTAGES OF CONCRETE

- Does not require a large base for construction

- Virtually fireproof, easier to isolate a high-rise fire

- Floor slabs typically can be thinner, allowing more living units to be built

Designed to handle wind

The asymmetrical design and weight from concrete give the 360,000-ton tower additional stability against the wind

DISRUPTING FORMATION OF VORTICES

Vortices are small forces of whirling wind that can cause the tower to sway.

- Curved edges allow the approaching wind to wrap around the building's corners more easily than around a building without an aerodynamic design.

- Setbacks further disrupt the wind's constant push on the building's shaft and limit formation of vortices.

Building from the ground up

The building process begins several stories below ground. The tower will be layered floor by floor until it reaches 92 stories.

Core: Spine of the building

Columns and slabs: Provide support for each new floor built above.

Caissons: Reach about 110 feet into the bedrock and act as stilts to support the structure.

1. Laying the foundation

Caisson shafts are drilled into the ground, then filled with cement.

2. Forming the concrete structure

The core, columns and slabs are added. This process is repeated for each floor.

3. Enclosing the building

Stainless steel, glass and aluminum panels are attached at each floor.

4. Finishing the interior

Interior components, such as drywall, electrical and mechanical systems, elevators and doors, are added.

CONSTRUCTION TIMELINE

Approximate times

1. (Early 2006)

2. (Mid-2008)

3. (Mid-2008)

4. (Early 2009)

To build the tower with steel, the building would need to be 25 feet wider.

Concrete: 135 feet

Steel: 160 feet

Height excluding spire: 1,125 feet

Spire

Will rise to 1,360 feet, which will make the tower 90 feet shorter than the Sears Tower.

Inside

- Penthouses

Floors 86-89

(Ranges from a 2,343 sq. ft. two-bedroom unit to a 14,260 sq. ft. seven-bedroom unit)

- Residential condos

Floors 29-85

- Hotel condos & executive lounge

Floors 17-27

- Hotel restaurant, ballrooms & conference center

Floors 16-17

- Health club and spa

Mezzanine and floor 14

- Parking

Floors 3-12

- Lobbies, restaurants and retail

On lower floors

Stainless steel/glass/aluminum panels

Sources: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; Koenig & Strey GMAC Real Estate; Bovis Lend Lease Inc.; Joe Nasvik, senior editor of Concrete Construction magazine

Graphic by Gentry Sleets and Keith Claxton.

Chicago Tribune

- See microfilm for complete graphic illustration.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/graphic/2005-03/16887267.jpg

The most up-to-date renderings.

Well guys, I did the best that I could, and I hope that this is okay. Let me know:)

http://img231.echo.cx/img231/179/riverwalk0328053pu.jpg

http://img231.echo.cx/img231/5299/wabash0328053qv.jpg

http://img231.echo.cx/img231/6449/lakeview0328058ma.jpg

ENJOY :)

AWESOME PICS..great job...my favorite project in the US.

Good to see the gap between Aon and J.Hancock center with something there. I think its a really good looking building.

Haha! Sleek!

looking very handsome! nice :)

Take notice, Stinson!!

Trump Tower Height Adjustment

Myself, Tom in Chicago and Chicago Shawn got the opportunity today to get a brief look at the blueprints for Trump International Hotel & Tower chicago today in the Bovis construction trailer. You guys might be happy with these numbers :)

Roof height: 1130' 10"

Structural (to the top of the structural screen): 1171' 0"

Tip (top of the spire): 1361' 6"

There will be 4 lower levels

I'm sure that we will make several treks back to the construction trailer throughout construction.

Well guys, I did the best that I could, and I hope that this is okay. Let me know:)

Those are incredible renderings, but you need a better photo to use for that bird's eye one.

:applause: :master:

wow cool

well I was skeptical at first about the added spire, but the more I think about it, I think it looks pretty nice, especially if it's a good spire that blends in with the tower.
And great renderings too

http://www.trumpchicago.com

As Trump tower rises, setbacks pile up
Building battles challenges of nature, markets

By Susan Diesenhouse
Tribune Staff Reporter
Published September 18, 2005

In July, three months after construction began on the foundation of the 92-story Trump International Tower and Hotel, water began leaking into the building site from the Chicago River.

With the foundation being laid next to and below the level of the river, it always was a possibility that the old sea wall wouldn't hold. It did, but water began seeping through seams in a corner where the wall meets the Wabash Avenue bridge.

The construction of any building is not just the grand achievement of architects and engineers. It is the culmination of a million tiny tasks, and the triumph of overcoming a million tiny problems--any of which could become a crisis.

The difficulties in building the biggest building in a generation in Chicago go beyond just bricks and mortar. They started with the job of finding the site, creating the design and raising the money. They continue with putting the building up and keeping costs down.

In fact, there are bigger issues than seeping water or worries about dropping a 140-foot beam on the roof of the IBM building's garage next door. One is preventing the project from buckling under the rising costs of construction materials.

"What I really worry about is all the trades I haven't bought," said Paul James, using construction industry jargon for the millions of dollars of materials he has yet to purchase for the interior of the building. James is overseeing the project for the construction manager Bovis Lend Lease Inc. of London.

From the outside, none of this is visible. Passersby who peer down into the construction site from a temporary pedestrian walkway see a modest-size pit along the Chicago River.

"But it's much more," said Donald Trump Jr., vice president of development and acquisition for the company whose chief executive is his flamboyant father.

Since last fall, Trump Corp. has demolished the Chicago Sun-Times building that stood on the 2-acre site and completed some of the project's most difficult spadework, which is key to the structural integrity of the 2.7 million-square-foot tower.

The ear-shattering percussion of pounding 241 supports, called caissons, deep into the earth may have jangled neighbors' nerves. But to the New York-based developer it is essential to laying the foundation for the approximately $800 million building.

It had to drive 57 of the caissons 110 feet into limestone bedrock, a feat reserved for construction of the tallest towers here.

"The Trump edge is understanding construction," Trump, 27, said on one of his weekly visits to the site.

The rest of the foundation system and basements are being built on the caissons, which will support the weight of the entire tower, equivalent to 240,000 cars.

In October, workers will pour the high-strength concrete for the steel-reinforced mat that will unite and secure the caissons. Upon the mat--which will be 240 feet long, 60 feet wide and 10 feet deep--will rest the tower's core walls.

By next year, the core walls will start to rise. By fall 2007, portions of the building are expected to be ready for occupancy. The tower, which will house 758 private and hotel condominiums as well as retail space, is expected to be finished in 2009, Trump Jr. said.

In part, the Trump construction formula is about selective cost-cutting, which Trump Jr. said he learned at his father's elbow, following him around building sites just as his father trailed after his grandfather.

To keep costs down, he said, "We don't let architects build every feature." But it's also about simplifying the process.

So far, the construction work completed is worth near $30 million, or 5 percent of Trump's $600 million construction budget. Another $200 million will be spent on other aspects of the development. But no matter how smoothly construction goes, erecting a 1,362-foot-tall tower is a complex undertaking.

"Tall buildings are more demanding as an engineering solution," said architect Richard Tomlinson, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP. His firm designed the Trump project as well as the Sears and Hancock towers in Chicago.

The Trump tower will stack retail, parking, a hotel and condominiums on top of each other. This change of uses changes the design of the interior space.

A three-bedroom residential condominium will have bathrooms in different locations than a hotel suite. Therefore, plumbing can't descend directly down the tower but must at times be routed horizontally, which makes the system more costly and its operation more difficult to fine tune.

The same is true of load-bearing columns. The 14 million pounds that each column carries must be transferred horizontally via huge girders. "As the tallest tower to be built post-9/11, it's a celebrated project," said John Fish, chief executive of Boston-based Suffolk Construction Co., a major East Coast builder who is watching the project's progress. "But it poses special construction challenges."

With the price of construction materials up sharply in the last two years, cost containment on such a mammoth project is a chore, Fish said.

For instance, the average nationwide price of concrete, the material being used for the foundation and frame, increased 14.5 percent during the last year, according to Engineering News Record, a trade publication. Last fall, after an 18-month debate, Trump decided on an all-concrete frame, in part to eliminate the expense of using structural steel, a commodity whose price had doubled since summer 2003.

Still, James is concerned about materials required to build out the interior because they have not yet been purchased, and prices could rise as a result of rebuilding efforts in the nation's storm-damaged areas.

Further, such a large project requires so much construction material that it can pinch supplies, raising prices throughout the marketplace, said Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

In April, Trump Corp. started to build the foundation system below the Chicago River; in August, contractors started to excavate for the basements.

"This is probably the trickiest part of the construction process," said Stephen Fort, general manager of the Chicago office for Turner Construction Co., which is not involved in the project but, like most in the industry, is watching with interest.

"When you're in the hole, there are so many unknowns, you don't control your own destiny," he said.

In the spring, Trump Corp. sealed an old freight tunnel and removed dock pilings from the site. But in July water started seeping in and the builders had a problem. They sent divers into the murky river to see whether the leak could be sealed from the water side. That failed, as did several other attempts to correct the problem. Finally, they came upon a solution.

"We drove a steel plate next to the gap, dug out the space between and filled it with concrete," James said. "That worked. In a big project like this there are lots of opportunities to have major things go wrong. This wasn't one of them."

Most of the tower's caissons descend into hard clay about 75 feet down, but others were drilled an extra 35 feet, including 6 feet into bedrock.

"That's a long way, made tougher by managing the water in the hole," Klemencic said.

Meanwhile, a concrete pump for the project is being custom-made in Germany. Every hour its 630-horsepower engine will be able to pump 100 cubic yards of concrete and send it as high as 1,700 feet.

"Previously, we could only get up to 700 feet vertical," James noted.

Still, the old Sun-Times building that Trump purchased for $74 million, including the land, has proven to be an unexpected boon, Trump Jr. said.

During site preparation last fall, the company encountered less ground pollution from the printing plant than anticipated because in the 1970s the newspaper switched from petroleum-based to soy-based ink. Trump therefore avoided some costly site cleanup.

Finally, the company saved at least $1 million by reusing the Sun-Times' old sea wall.

"In the 1950s, the Sun-Times built it to withstand another sort of terrorism: the Cold War," Trump Jr. said. "It was as thick as a bomb shelter."

Trump's tower

HEIGHT: 92 stories, or 1,362 feet, the tallest skyscraper to go up in the U.S. since the 1992 completion of the Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta.

ARCHITECT: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, which designed the Sears Tower, at 1,450 feet, the nation's tallest building, and the John Hancock building, at 1,127 feet.

COST: approximately $800 million

COMPLETION: 2009

DETAILS: 472 condominiums, 286 hotel condominiums, 100,000 square feet of retail, parking for 1,000 cars and a three-tiered riverfront park.

PRE-SOLD: 572 resi-dences valued at approximately $700 million.

FINANCING: $640 million construction loan from Deutsche Bank AG.

Source: Trump Corp., Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

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sdiesenhouse@tribune.co

FRONT AND CENTER
Trump Jr. builds on roots
Working for father, he's in Chicago regularly to check progress on hotel/condo tower

SUSAN DIESENHOUSE
Published September 18, 2005

Donald Trump Jr., vice president of development and acquisition for New York-based Trump Corp., visits Chicago nearly every Tuesday to check progress on the 92-story skyscraper the firm is building on the former site of the Chicago Sun-Times building. The 27-year-old executive shared some of his thoughts about the project and Chicago in an interview with Tribune reporter Susan Diesenhouse.

Q. What's your impression of Chicago?

A. It's a financial capital like New York, our bread and butter. Chicago is similar to New York minus some of the pretension. People mix better. It's a breath of fresh air. New York can be a little cliquey. Chicago is a great architectural city; the best in the country. Our building is designed by an architectural legend [Adrian Smith, a partner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP]; that makes it easier for us.

Q. What have been the most challenging aspects of this project so far?

A. Financing a building of this cost and size was incredibly difficult. Not too many people will write a check for $640 million; not too many bankers wanted to finance the largest condominium project in the U.S. With offices, we could say, "We have a long-term lease." With apartment sales at these crazy numbers, it was hard to get them to understand the asset we were sitting on. This is something new, and bankers don't necessarily want to break the mold. They have investors to answer to.

Also marketing the hotel condos. People didn't understand them. An individual buys a unit, puts it into a rental pool. When the owner isn't there, they rent it out and have cash flow. It's an interesting way to own real estate; having it carry itself when you're not in it. We went six weeks without selling one so we went back to the brokers. Now they're selling well, maybe better than the condos.

Q. What was the genesis of this project?

A. The first talks were in 1999. By 2000, 2001 the plan was to build the world's tallest building--all commercial. After 9/11, that was scrapped as not the greatest idea because the Chicago office market wasn't hot. By the end of 2003, we started sales with 500,000 square feet of commercial space. A year later, condo sales were so phenomenal we eliminated the offices.

Q. At this point, what aspects of construction have been most captivating for you?

A. What's fascinating for me as a developer is digging this deep to do caissons (supports for the building). Also, it's really interesting that we couldn't have built this 15 years ago in all concrete. It wasn't strong enough back then.

Q. Did 9-/11 change any of your construction plans?

A. We've always been good about building safety systems into our buildings; our name is on every one. So, post-9/11, we see that we've been doing everything right all along.

Q. Have you decided if you're going to add a spire to the top?

A. We don't have to decide yet, but it doesn't look like we'll have an architectural spire that brings it to the tallest building.

Q. Where else is Trump building?

A. Las Vegas, Ft. Lauderdale, Sunny Isles, Phoenix, New York, L.A., Palm Beach. Some cities will do anything to have Trump come in. It means they've arrived. We get great locations and we aren't known for overpaying.

Q. Who do you answer to on this project?

A. I report to my father. He's the ultimate decision-maker. I've been in my current position for one year. I've been working on the project since 2001, a year after I graduated form Wharton. I understand the numbers side and started as a grunt analyst.

Q. And Bill from the television show, "The Apprentice," what's he doing?

A. He's largely sales and marketing. He'll be with us for another year.

Q. What do you worry about? What keeps you up at night?

A. What don't I worry about? I want to see Chicago real estate thrive. We've made money for every other developer in Chicago by re-establishing the center. It's very exciting to see the Sun-Times go down and this go up.

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sdiesenhouse@tribune.com

does this mean that chicago people now like spires and antenas?

I don't think we have anything against spires (and antennas definitely not) but we still won't count by them.