What name should everyone be using to refer to this magnificent location in our great city? 108 N. State Street or Block 37?
On the one hand –
108 N. State Street is great to facilitate people (newcomers, tourists, and locals alike) on finding the place.It also puts the State Street name into the equation which i think is good.
On the other hand-
Block 37 is a cool unique catchy name to match this cool, unique, catchy location.

Yeah, I also wanted Block 37, or to be trendier, B37. Maybe they can work that name into a night club or something.

But 108 North State is probably best for their image, a la 900 North Michigan.

Some of you may remember one I suggested a ways back. With the CTA expess connection to O'Hare and Midway from downtown, I thought a great name for Block 37 would have been AeroLoop.

^ "aeroloop"????????

that sounds like a carnival ride from old riverview park.


i really like the sound of "Block 37", it sounds tough..... i don't know..... "block" is just a cool word.

but "108 North State" rhymes, so that's pretty cool too.

Block 37 and 108 N State really refer to two different things.

"108 N State" is an address for the new project, which happens to be built on Block 37. It defines the new project, and will most likely used going forward. Since it didn't exist in it's current form before, the name for the empty block fell to it's original title.

Block 37 (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/146.html) was platted in James R Thompsons 1830 survey of Chicago, and numbers among Chicagos original 58 blocks (I happen to live on Block 58). It is really only the land itself, you wouldn't use a block number for any of the other locations in the loop. I think that the developer would just as soon you forget Block 37, and learn 108 N State. There are too many negative connotations with Block 37 and retail that Mills Corp would like to put behind them.

I hope that Block 37 remains if in nothing else the city's lexicon. It sounds tough and a bit forboding. If you were from London or even LA and were told by someone "you have to go to block 37" then they might be a bit hesitant though curious. Once they get there their vision and idea of what to expect would be totally contradict and open their eyes to their preconceived notions. If you were for instance to name it "Washington square" or even "Kennedy plaza" or something then it would seem trite and a bit predictable.

I hope that Block 37 remains if in nothing else the city's lexicon. It sounds tough and a bit forboding. If you were from London or even LA and were told by someone "you have to go to block 37" then they might be a bit hesitant though curious. Once they get there their vision and idea of what to expect would be totally contradict and open their eyes to their preconceived notions. If you were for instance to name it "Washington square" or even "Kennedy plaza" or something then it would seem trite and a bit predictable.

Maybe the Bears will deliver a Super Bowl championship to the city the way the Sox did in baseball.

In deference to the Super Bowl, Let's refer to it as Block XXXVII

I like the sound of Block 37 better.
__________________________
http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-block16.html
Channel 2 breaks ground with Block 37 studio
November 16, 2005

BY DAVID ROEDER Business Reporter



A developer and WBBM-Channel 2 staged a multimedia groundbreaking Tuesday for Block 37, hoping corporate showmanship would lift a curse on downtown's most difficult development site.

The bash featured dancers, magic tricks, cannon shots of confetti and a parade of Channel 2 reporters and anchors doing their best runway strut. The celebration of CBS' decision to occupy an office tower on the block suggested that development on the rest of the site is inevitable, when that's far from the case.

What's certain is the CBS building at the northeast corner of Dearborn and Washington should be finished in two years. Another confirmed portion is a Chicago Transit Authority connection, scheduled to open in March 2008, for nonexpress service to the city's airports. The CTA has asked for federal money for express trains.

But everything else, a condominium tower, a hotel and a concentration of stores along State Street, remains a work in progress, subject to economic whims and dealmaking abilities of the developer, Mills Corp. A publicly traded company, Mills has reported financial setbacks in its most recent quarterly earnings, but executives insisted that has no bearing on their commitment to Block 37.






THE NEW BLOCK 37


The map shows tentative components of the Block 37 project. Only the CBS building at Dearborn and Washington has a finished design. The CTA is aiming for a March 2008 completion of the transit station. Developer Mills Corp. says it hopes to complete the retail and entertainment part in spring 2008. No arrival dates are known for future high-rises other than the CBS building.


Click here for the new Block 37 map »






Mills and CBS executives said they shared the costs of the groundbreaking, held in a huge tent on the site. A source at the party who is experienced in planning corporate events said it cost at least $175,000.

Executive Vice President Steven Jacobsen, who oversees Block 37 for Mills, denied assertions by project observers that the company has quietly downsized the retail portion of the complex. Initial project descriptions said it would feature 400,000 square feet of commercial space, an amount Mills now describes as the "gross building area.''

Overall leasable space, including an allotment for the CTA, totals about 300,000 square feet, Jacobsen said. He said Mills has conformed to its deal with the city allowing for up for 5 percent changes in space allotments.

The city sold Mills the block, which sits between the Daley Center and Marshall Field's, for $12.3 million two years after acquiring it from another developer for $32.5 million. The city also has committed $42.4 million in public subsidies from the land's future tax revenues.

Several speakers, leading off with Mayor Daley, all said the project was marking a key milestone with the CBS agreement to anchor the office building and provide a street-level broadcast studio that will have the Picasso sculpture and events in the Daley Center Plaza as a backdrop.

Daley acknowledged that numerous plans for Block 37 have come and gone. "But when a project is that important and when land is that valuable, time brings out the best,'' he said.

He later told reporters that prior proposals never matched his idea that the site deserved unique attractions, something Mills hopes to attract. "We had a lot of people come forward and they were unacceptable, and that's why we turned them down,'' Daley said.

Mills has disclosed tentative lease agreements with eight users in the retail space, but all are relatively small operations. It's not known if Mills can fill the complex with enough stores to create excitement.

It does not expect an agreement with a large department store. It also has quarreled with the city over whether movie theaters or a pool hall would be permitted.

City officials are worried that some of the Mills ideas don't conform to their idea of upscale appeal.


Central area could become a signature space

BY KEVIN NANCE Architecture Critic


Downtown retail-and-entertainment centers can be shots in the arms of struggling city cores, but they're often architectural sphinxes -- walled-off urban fortresses with drab, mostly opaque exteriors that neither lend visual interest to the streetscape nor entice shoppers inside. For cases in point, see Indianapolis' Circle Centre or Chicago's own Water Tower Place.

It's too early for a definitive judgment on 108 N. State Street, the planned retail, entertainment, business and residential complex on the choice but long-bedeviled parcel of land known as Block 37. But if the entire project gets built, and if it ends up looking anything like the handful of renderings made available at a rather sketchy groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday, it could turn out to be one of Chicago's signature public spaces.

Its popularity might never rival that of Navy Pier or Millennium Park, but it could be an important component in the ongoing campaign to make downtown more attractive to workers, residents and visitors.

If that happens, the project's appeal will be inseparable from its glass-based exterior designs, which emphasize visual transparency -- inviting visitors in, rather than symbolically shutting them out, and integrating with the streetscape rather than hiding from it. Designed by the Chicago offices of the architecture firms Gensler and Perkins + Will, the complex's exteriors echo the strategy of Renzo Piano's planned addition to the Art Institute of Chicago: Let the light in, the theory goes, and the people will follow.

The transparency would work both ways. As you're shopping, dining, working out or going bowling in the complex, you'd have a constant visual connection with what's happening on the street. (As a bonus to merchants, studies have shown that daylight in retail environments increases sales.)

But if 108 N. State were merely a series of glass boxes, its see-through aspect wouldn't generate enough architectural heft to allow the building to hold its own against the massive edifices (including the Daley Center, the Oriental Theatre and Marshall Field's) that surround it. That's partly why the design has several eye-catching touches that emphasize mirroring and other reflective effects, many of which take aesthetic cues from some of the most popular features of Millennium Park.

There is, for example, a vertical art installation on the State Street facade by artist James Carpenter, featuring projected video imagery of the city that might remind viewers of Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain. Flanking Carpenter's work on either side are Gensler-designed stainless-steel panels that will undulate in a basket-weave pattern that reflects the buildings and street life around them in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate. The idea: Look at us, and see yourself.

Whether Mills Corp., the project developer, can pull all of this off is unclear. If it does, 108 N. State could be Chicago's newest spot in which to see and be seen, in more ways than one.

When I was doing a project about Block 37, I like the name 108 N. State Street better than Block 37. When I said Block 37, no one knew anything about it, but when I said 108 N. State Street, they think of downtown, etc.

Block 37 is better, it's more unique.

If New York can have the Empire State Building, why can't we have Prairie State Place* between State and Dearborn, Randolph and Washington?


* or Prairie State Plaza

OTHER POSSIBLIITIES:

Mid-American Plaza
Wind 37
Place duSable
Loop Central

^i like block 37 better but i like your loop central idea also as an alternative ...not that its accualy going to be used though.

"block" is just a cool word.

Wow, someone else who shares my affection for the world "block." I don't really know why I like it, either. It just has a good sound to it.

I'd prefer to keep the name "Block 37". If anything, it reminds us of all the turmoil and despair that star-cross'd patch of land was forced to endure before it finally made something of itself.

108 n. states street to me is, although a prestigious address, still just another address! Block 37 is unique and has an edgy sound to it.

108 n. states street to me is, although a prestigious address, still just another address! Block 37 is unique and has an edgy sound to it.
Agreed. And come to think of it, the specific address 108 N. State St. is a postal necessity. Frankly, it would be a convenience to the greater public if each block was known by its designated number. Then whenever someone refers to say Block 25, we'd have a clearer sense of its precise location relative to surrounding blocks; a block grid, if you will.