Massive 800-Ft. Office Tower Could Be Heading To Riverfront

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 18, 2017 9:14PM

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a mammoth skyscraper is poised to take root downtown along the Chicago River.

The latest proposal, if approved, would see the old General Growth Building, located at 110 N. Wacker Dr. between Randolph and Washington, along the eastern bank of the Chicago River, razed and the site used for a giant, glass-and-steel office tower.

The specs are pretty breathtaking: 800 feet tall, 1,350,000 square feet of office space and a 40-ft tall lobby. But the developers—Texas-based Howard Hughes Company and Chicago-based Riverside Investment and Development—are laudably keeping the general public in mind, too—even on chance that it’s only to better their zoning chances with their city. To wit, the space around the skyscraper would include significant open park space and a new addition of Riverwalk path, both open to the public.

The building would join other nearby under-construction high-rises like the mega-sized 150 N. Riverside and 151 N. Franklin.

As Chicago Architecture noted, the proposal is right in line with current trends, and the General Growth Properties building is increasingly looking like a holdover from a bygone era.

“The GGP building is something of a throwback to the days when Midcentury modernism went astray and we ended up with giant Tuff Sheds hunched along the banks of the Chicago River,” the blog says. In with the shimmery, glass glitz.

If approved, the new office tower is expected to take three years to complete.

[H/T Curbed]