CHICAGO | Wolf Point | 290m | 950ft | 80 fl | 228m | 750ft | 60 fl | 160m | 525ft | 50 fl | Pro

[nomarandlee]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,0,17155.story

Wolf Point proposal promising, but it has a way to go
Kennedy family's $1 billion development needs some reworking

By Blair Kamin

June 3, 2012

Cities rarely get opportunities for architectural greatness like the one Chicago now has at Wolf Point. This historic plot at the meeting of theChicago River'sbranches — once home to pioneer taverns and trading posts, in recent decades an eyesore surface parking lot — is as prominent as they come. It deserves the finest architecture and public spaces. Nothing less will do.

The $1 billion plan for Wolf Point unveiled at a community meeting Tuesday by representatives of the Kennedy family and three financial partners is not there yet. It needs substantial improvement before the developers and their architects, led by Cesar Pelli of the New Haven, Conn., firm Pelli Clarke Pelli, should be granted the zoning change they covet...........

It is, at first blush, an appealing plan, achieving a careful balance between density and openness, framing the public space along the river without overwhelming it. Yet on closer inspection, several aspects of the proposal require rethinking and reworking:

•Parking: There's too much of it.......

•Architecture: It's welcome news that the developers plan to clad the towers in a mix of glass, metal and stone, a cut above the painted concrete high-rises that have blighted River North. The tallest tower, with its sloped, split crown and tapering silhouette, could be an icon. But Pelli is still developing the sophisticated skins that typically animate his skyscrapers and are needed to bring life to these giants.

The apartment building, by the Chicago firm bKL, has some nice touches, including a carefully composed, waferlike mass and a riverfront-engaging base. Yet there's still a soulless sameness to the three buildings, suggesting a suburban office park on steroids.

•The pedestrian experience: The idea of placing towers in a parklike setting is simultaneously the project's strength and its weaknesses. One man's openness is another man's blandness. More thought needs to go into activating the bases of these buildings and shaping pedestrian-friendly spaces with restaurants and other amenities. The naturalistic landscape plan, by Chicago's Ted Wolff, is appealing, but lacks the pizazz needed to mark this significant spot in the cityscape and draw people to the river's edge.

•A lack of history: The plan does nothing to commemorate Wolf Point's past as the hub of pioneer-era Chicago in the 1830s, failing to follow the graceful precedent of other buildings along the river..........

MORE in link
...

[HK999]

Can't sleep... thank God it's past 8...

From CTBUH:

Clean Tower
Kyle Bigart & Peter Binggeser
Site: Wolf Point, Chicago IL, USA
Institution: Illinois Institute of Technology
Professor: Antony Wood
Studio: 2012 Hi-Rise, Lo-Carb: Chicago

By focusing on water purification and public space, Clean Tower redefines the way Chicagoans interact with the Chicago River. The leaning high-rise with dramatic views aims to celebrate, rather than mistreat, the river.

“The tower’s vegetated wetland habitats filled with naturally-cleaned water bring the experience of riverfront living up into the sky.”

The Chicago River has long been discarded and mistreated—and generally off-limits to the public. Clean Tower seeks to interact positively with the river and expand riverfront public space. The project looks to reinvigorate Wolf Point; one of Chicago’s most sought after yet currently underused sites.Clean Tower purifies water, creates water habitats in the sky and grows bio-fuel—symbolizing a new relationship between the city and its river. Located at Wolf Point, which juts into the river, Clean Tower creates a large public plaza. The leaning high-rise contains residences, offices, a hotel, retail space, and vertical boat storage.

Icon for a Clean Chicago
By placing the base of the tower at the back of the site and creating a public riverfront plaza, Clean Tower becomes a place for people to connect with each other and the river. The project’s form, which leans towards the river, maximizes views and becomes an icon for a sustainable Chicago.

Cleaning River Water
A new “living machine” wetland placed on the roof of the Merchandise Mart naturally cleans the building’s wastewater, including water taken from the river for mechanical purposes. The clean water from the “living machine” is then sent to supply the tower’s wetlands and eventually returned to the river pollutant free. Using these systems, Clean Tower can purify more than one million gallons of river water annually and is a prototype for riverfront buildings worldwide.

Pixilated Wetlands
Large communal wetland pools bridge the two wings of the tower every eight floors. By bringing naturally-cleaned river water up into the building, the residential units can have direct access to swimming and gathering “by the river.” The 60 residential levels are “pixilated” by creating large exterior spaces on each floor. These spaces contain small, private wetlands for the residents. The tower thus has three scales of river: personal river wetland gardens, the communal river wetland pools every eight floors and the river itself below.

Public Park and Boardwalk Climb
A huge public plaza extends from the water’s edge around the tower to connect with the wetlands atop the Merchandise Mart. Naturally cleaned water flows along a retail boardwalk from the wetlands to the Chicago River. Vertical boat storage between the office and hotel buildings provides revenue for the building and convenience for boatowners.

Very interesting concept. The tower looks pretty tall!

[Jay]

Originally Posted by HK999

Very interesting concept. The tower looks pretty tall!

But surely just a vision, plus the leaning weirds me out a bit.

It's good that they have been publishing that the project needs improvement though... maybe in the end we'll see something better.

[Dancing Banana]

the design is pretty bland for such an iconic location... just 3 2012 glass towers with a 2012 shape. im kinda disapointed.. the highest tower should be higher or the second tallest shorter. the way it is now makes it seem boring. towers like this fit some random standard plot but not at such a place with rivers on three sides... even a public park would fit the area better ...

[desertpunk]

^
I don't see what's so bland about this:


http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/2012/05/hines-point.html

Had this been a proposed office complex in NYC it could well have been 3 boxes. Chicago has had some great architecture in many recent proposed developments. This one rates high among them in my book.

[aquaticko]

I personally am really tired of the PCP Gran Torre Constanera copy-and-paste. It wasn't even that interesting to begin with, and the idea of having the essentially the same tower in Santiago, San Francisco, and now Chicago is disappointing. It also seems silly to me to try and keep three towers on such a small site so physically separate from one another; it just isn't a good use of the space.

[kaz03]

Originally Posted by aquaticko

I personally am really tired of the PCP Gran Torre Constanera copy-and-paste. It wasn't even that interesting to begin with, and the idea of having the essentially the same tower in Santiago, San Francisco, and now Chicago is disappointing. It also seems silly to me to try and keep three towers on such a small site so physically separate from one another; it just isn't a good use of the space.

I dont see a problem with the use of space the complex was designed to leave as much ground space open for a garden i think they did a pretty good job at that.

[aquaticko]

Unless there is some kind of podium or retail space or other thing to draw people to the area, instead of the building necessarily, then those gardens won't be anything but empty decorations. I agree with the article nomarandlee posted: a site as beautifully placed as this shouldn't take chances on it not being used as a public space (which it won't be because it is physically isolated, unless their is something to draw people to it).

[AndrewJM3D]

I hate those leaning tower designs, they are granted really cool to look at but I would never want to go up one let alone buy a condo in one.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by aquaticko

Unless there is some kind of podium or retail space or other thing to draw people to the area, instead of the building necessarily, then those gardens won't be anything but empty decorations. I agree with the article nomarandlee posted: a site as beautifully placed as this shouldn't take chances on it not being used as a public space (which it won't be because it is physically isolated, unless their is something to draw people to it).

There will be some ground level retail but the problem has been dealing with traffic and parking. Making Wolf Point into some kind of major public destination would anger neighbors who are already up in arms about traffic. So the 'garnishes' will probably be more directed at populations within the development.

Right now, Wolf Point is nothing but a crappy parking lot:

image hosted on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yochicago1/

[ZZ-II]

That would be a great location for a new Supertall in Chicago i think

[aquaticko]

It's a great improvement over what's there, and I can't deny that it's hard to really integrate something nearly surrounded by water into the surrounding neighborhood, it just would have been nice to see something really innovative, particularly in a city like Chicago, where so much skyscraper history has taken place.

[desertpunk]

Will A Scrawnier Wolf Get Everyone On Point?

The current champion for largest and most controversial development in downtown Chicago (that actually has a chance of happening) is making its way through the approval process largely unscathed.

Wolf Point (350 North Orleans Street) is the lupine child of Houston-based global mega-developer Hines, and Chicago-based local really-wanna-be-huge-someday developer Magellan. Their architect, Pelli Clarke Pelli has made some changes to the three-tower project on the Chicago River in order to appease neighborhood naysayers, but it remains mostly what was presented at the public meeting we covered earlier this year.



Broadly speaking, what Hines and Magellan have done to make the project more visually appealing is to give the towers more taper at their bases, opening up more sight lines and more room for landscaping. They’ve also connected the towers to the riverwalk, making them an active part of the Wolf Point experience, rather than a corporate castle overlooking the peasants along the moat.

The biggest, and perhaps most legitimate, complaint against Wolf Point is traffic. Getting around the immediate area is already difficult, and at rush hours it’s a nightmare. Any development of Wolf Point, short of sinking it into the river, will mean more traffic. It’s up to the developer to minimize the impact, and it’s up to the NIMBY groups to understand that they will have to make sacrifices for others, just as those who came earlier made sacrifices for them.

According to the Chicago Journal, the traffic engineering firm Kenig, Lindgren, O’Hare, Aboona (KLOA) has done traffic studies of the Wolf Point at least five times now. Once for the developers, and four more times when that study and its subsequent revisions were rejected by 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly.

Whether the Wolf Point plan in its current form is enough to get a thumb’s up from the alderman remains to be seen. It is still being pounded by local NIMBY group Friends of Wolf Point, which believes the neighborhood is simply too crowded for a project of this size. However, while the members may indeed be friends of the Point, they are also fans of their property values, which stand to take a hit if the project is built and blocks their views.

Much more: http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info...yone-on-point/

[DFDalton]

That plot is far too small for three high rises. Plus I don't like it crowding out views of the Merchandise Mart. This site cries out for a single, slender supertall.

[ZZ-II]

Originally Posted by DFDalton

That plot is far too small for three high rises. Plus I don't like it crowding out views of the Merchandise Mart. This site cries out for a single, slender supertall.

Or a megatall

Joke away , a supertall would be indeed great for that place!

[Eric Offereins]

3 skyscrapers here is ok to me, nice tight cluster.

[desertpunk]

Next stop: Full Approval

Reilly Rules Wolf Point Won’t Be Spayed By Howling Neighbors

The three skyscrapered mega-project due to sprout along the Chicago River late this year has been officially given the nod of approval from 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly.

Some think replacing the surface parking lot at Wolf Point (350 North Orleans Street) with two office one residential tower is just too much for the neighborhood, the traffic grid, and their views. But in an e-mail sent to his constituents, Reilly let it be known that the plan has his blessing.

In the grand tradition of Chicago politics, his is the only voice that matters. For decades it has been virtually unheard of for any alderman to vote against a project that has the backing of its local representative. That means, for all intents and purposes, Wolf Point is a go. And considering the words we’ve heard from the developer recently, we could see dirt turned before the end of the year.

...

[roogenial]

I love Chicago. I hope to see this project built next time I visit the windy city.

[tawfiqmp]

Yessssss. Wolf Point baby.

[desertpunk]

Wolf Point vote could come next week

A proposal to build three high-rises on Wolf Point could face a key test next Thursday, when the Chicago Plan Commission is set to review the project, which has drawn criticism from neighborhood residents and ambivalence from the area's alderman.

The development near the Merchandise Mart is on the commission's agenda for the third straight month. Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, had pulled it off the agendas for the commission's November and December meetings. The tentative lineup for the Jan. 24 meeting includes the latest proposal from the project's developer, a venture led by Houston-based Hines Interests L.P. and the Kennedy family.

It's unclear whether Mr. Reilly supports the current proposal. According to long-running city tradition, aldermen must sign off on projects in their wards before developers seek city approval. Ellen Barry, leader of Friends of Wolf Point, a neighborhood group that opposes the development, said the alderman's chief of staff told her earlier this week that he “hasn't taken a position on it yet.” Mr. Reilly and his chief of staff could not be reached for comment Thursday. Late last year, Mr. Reilly said the project wasn't a done deal.

Hines and the Kennedys want to spend $1 billion on three towers on Wolf Point, starting with a 510-unit apartment building on the west end of the site.

After initially giving the project his blessing, Mr. Reilly twice postponed a Plan Commission vote on Wolf Point, objecting to what he said were last-minute changes by the development team, such as language allowing 1,800 hotel rooms on the property.

After the delays, Mr. Reilly organized a third community meeting in late December, where the developers promised additional community reviews of the project and said they would cap the number of hotel rooms at 450.

[...]
Read more: http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.co...#ixzz2IOlTLYGH
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