Slice of Life: Assumption Church

Until recently, Holy Name Cathedral was both my home parish and my favorite church in Chicago.  Now, it has competition for "favorite church" title.

I've been to Assumption Church (323 West Illinois Street) about five times, and each time it just gets better, for a lot of reasons.  But in keeping with this blog's theme, we'll concentrate on its physical structure.  The church is based on traditional Italian churches.  While the outside is fairly plain, the inside decorations equal any church of similar size I've been to in Italy.  It's a slice of forgotten old school Chicago, and great place to explore if you get a chance.

Clark and Grand Hotels Plan Revised

A couple of days ago we told you that the plan to build three hotels on half a block in River North had been revised.

Well, we finally got our hands on the latest revision made by HOK, and it looks like it does indeed address a number of concerns local residents and businesses had.

In this first diagram we see how the western alley would be transformed from a regular alley into a place where hotel guests could be picked up and dropped off and a valet, area.  This would keep most of the hotel traffic off of Grand, Clark, and Illinois Streets.  Illuminated glass awnings, signage, and bollards would make the alley more inviting and help direct clueless tourists.

Deliveries get moved to a loading zone off of the eastern alley, adjacent to the proposed Fairfield Inn.

Trees and planters installed along the sidewalk designate pedestrian entrances to the buildings, but discourage cars from stopping along the street.

I don't know if we got to see this last time, but here is the green roof plan.  It shows that around 10,555 square feet of roof would be "green" (9,500 square feet of plants and 1,055 square feet of hardscape)  That's about 50% of the total roof space.

The Aloft hotel is now more glass and less brick.  Compare the old and new designs:

The glass facade is really more in line with the direction the neighborhood is going than the old brick.  Recent examples include 353 North Clark Street and 300 North LaSalle Drive, as well as venerable buildings like 321 North Clark Street.

For your further edification, here are the edifices' façades (changes noted in red):

This project is going by the address of 501 North Clark, but at this point retains the "Clark and Grand Hotels" name.

You can see our older posts on the project here:

• August 4, 2009: Three New Hotels Planned for River North
• October 27, 2009: Plan for Three New River North Hotels Revised

Plan for Three New River North Hotels Revised

Back in August we told you about a plan to put three new hotels on half of the block bounded by Clark Street, Grand Avenue, Dearborn Street, and Illinois Street.  Well, those plans have been revised.

There was concern about the kind of parking needed for a project of this size.  621 hotel rooms mean hundreds of extra cars.  Under the revised plan, the new hotels would use the new parking garage opening December 1st a couple of blocks away at 601 West Kinzie Street.

As usual, traffic is a concern, so the alleyway has been redesigned to not only handle deliveries, but to also serve as a valet area and a guest loading and unloading zone.

42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly's office issued a press release Tuesday night stating that the architects, "[redesigned] key portions of the facades that better contemplates the architectural language of the broader River North community."  What exactly that means, we don't know because the link to the detailed documents that the alderman's office sent out doesn't work.

But what we do know is that the project also now has a proper address.  It's now going by "501 North Clark Street."  It's not known yet if the former name "Clark and Grand Hotels" still sticks.

When Alderman Reilly's office gets the link thing straightened out, we'll post an update.

Three New Hotels Planned for River North

The City of Chicago is considering a plan to open three new hotels in River North.

The project, known collectively as the "Clark and Grand Hotels" has been designed by HOK Architects, and would be located on the western third of the block bounded by Clark Street, Grand Avenue, Dearborn Street, and Illinois Street.

Image from a presentation by HOK Architects

One would be a 181-room Fairfield Inn and Suites at 56 West Illinois Street.  Currently, this location is a surface parking lot. The new building would be 16 stories, and 159 feet tall.  The architect's drawings label it 17 stories, but they're skipping 13.

Second is an 18-story, 168-room Hyatt Place on the corner of Clark and Illinois.  It currently has the puzzling address of 520 North Dearborn Street, but the front door of the new building would be moved to Illinois Street.  The height to the roof is about at 155 feet, 173.5 feet to the top of the mechanical penthouse, and 182.5 feet to the maximum height of the structure.  Right now it's an old bank building from 1947.

Third is also 18 stories.  It is expected to be a 272-room Aloft hotel, at approximately 511 North Clark Street.  Right now this is surface parking.  In addition to the hotel, space has been left in the building for some ground-floor retail facing Grand Avenue.  Its main distinction from the other buildings is the inclusion of a decorative cornice which shades the roof and extends down the Grand Avenue side of the building.  Roof height of this building is pegged at 171 feet, while the cornice gives it an overall height of 187 feet.

Image from a presentation by HOK Architects

The project isn't too much taller than Boyce Building, with which it will share the block.  But it's somewhat larger and taller than its neighboring buildings.  However, a number of those buildings are older and municipal in nature (fire station, post office, etc...) so they are out of scale with the rest of this mid-rise zone.

Image from a presentation by HOK Architects

In addition to the Boyce Building, the other buildings that remain on the block are the shuttered Blue Water Grill, and a mixed use building at 57 West Grand that is home to a restaurant and a jazz bar.

Image from a presentation by HOK Architects

• The alley running north-to-south from Illinois Street to Grand Avenue would be used for loading dock access, but would be capped by the Hyatt Place hotel structure.
• Total project floor space: 379,000 square feet
• Total hotel rooms: 621

What's In A Name? The NBC Tower

 

 The NBC Tower is one of our favorite Chicago buildings.  In fact, it may be one of the best looking buildings in the city.  But we can't help but wonder these days if it's in for a name change.

For the last couple of months the Sun-Times has been chirping about NBC Universal moving production of the Jerry Springer Show and the Steve Wilkos Show to Connecticut.  Then last week there was a big brouhaha when NBC informed the state that it plans to lay off more than 100 people who work in the tower.  And now he rumblings are getting louder about NBC selling WMAQ-TV.

It's not exactly a secret that NBC doesn't want to be in the local television business anymore.  Word in broadcast circles is that the peacock network would like to dump every local station it has outside of New York and Los Angeles .  The fire sale is already on in New England where Providence is gone and Hartford is next.  How long until the flames reach the Illinois prairie?

It will be a sad day for Chicago when that illuminated peacock is winched down from the 37th floor of 200 East Illinois Street.  Sure, channel 5 will continue to broadcast, but Chicago will have lost another bit of broadcast prestige and the city's cultural voice that once boomed across the nation's midsection will become yet a little quieter.

Status Update: 465 North Park and the Waldorf=Astoria

How are things going along East Illinois Street where two massive projects are supposed to be underway? If you listen closely, you can hear crickets.

The front part of this lot, surrounded by the blue tarp fence is supposed to be 465 North Park Drive, a 57-story residential tower.  The back part, with all the cars parked on it, is supposed to be the new Waldorf=Astoria hotel.  Neither of them appear to be going anywhere, and with the lack of construction machinery or even an office trailer on site we don't expect much to happen this year.

Last year there was lots of work in the front (465) section.  Contractors were working on dealing with the soil, which like a lot of the dirt in the area, is contaminated with radioactive thorium from the old Lindsay Light factory that used to be here.  It sounds scarier than it is.  Remediating the soil before building a tower is S.O.P. for Streeterville and Lakeshore East.

As for the hotel?  You might want to bet on the Spire completing before you bet on the Waldorf=Astoria reaching 107 stories here in Chicago.  It's been hit with a double whammy: The mortgage came due and no a spade of earth ad been turned.  At the same time, DeStefano + Partners is suing the developer for $711,000 in unpaid feed for designing the building that looks nearly identical to one in China.

Progress Report:

There's something about walking around Chicago when it's snowing.  It just seems right.  In winter we like to walk in the snow.  In the summer, we like to walk down steamy alleys.  What gives?

Back on topic: the latest round of snowycam pictures shows the progress of the Hotel Palomar at 505 North State Street.  To us it looks like it's up to about the 17th story, and chugging along toward its goal of 36.

As much as we're fans of density in River North, it's a shame that the old park is gone.  Not many people used it, but it was nice to see a patch of green in the area, especially considering the number of surface parking lots just begging for vertical development.