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Helmut Jahn's South Loop Skyscraper Will Finally Start To Rise In 2018

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 24, 2017 10:48PM

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Jahn Architects

One of the most buzzed-about but curiously slow-moving skyscraper projects currently in development in Chicago finally has a start date. The massive, Helmut Jahn-designed tower slated for 1000 S. Michigan Ave. will break ground next year, one of the plan’s developers told the Tribune.

It’s been well over two years since plans for the Grant Park-overlooking skyscraper first became known, but even as other ambitious supertall developments start to swirl into fruition around the future site, progress has lagged and details of a groundbreaking were elusive for 1000M, as it’s dubbed.

But co-developer Robert Singer (Time Equities) told the paper that the 832-foot residential condo-and-apartment tower that they’re aiming for a 2018 start date and a 2021 finish.

Also, the design has shifted—and slightly trimmed, down from around 1000 feet—from when it was first proposed, into a “curvy silhouette,” as the Trib calls it, from its original hard right angles.

Aside from the large-scale renovation and upward expansion of the Essex Inn and 1000M, Rafael Viñoly's 76-story, supertall skyscraper set for 113 E. Roosevelt Rd. will also join the neighborhood's vertical manifest destiny. Meanwhile, Jahn has been keeping busy and winning our hearts by throwing noble wrenches into Republican lawmakers' dreams to demolish the architect's iconically ugly Thompson Center and replace it with a ginormous skyscraper of their own.

Check out the Trib’s full story here, which focuses specifically on the recent groundbreaking of the Essex Inn and, more broadly, the always-transforming South Loop skyline.

[H/T Curbed]