ArchitectureChicago PLUS: Godfrey, My Man

Monday, April 01, 2013

Godfrey, My Man - You're Alive!

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When last we left The Godfrey Hotel Chicago, in March of last year, it was still enshrouded and dormant as a pupa that had been lingering in that state for almost four years, ever since the money run out and construction halted at the LaSalle and Huron site for what was originally known as the Duke Miglin hotel, to a design by Valerio DeWalt Train.

The troubled property had just been acquired by Oxford Capital Group, the folks who even now are putting the finishing touches on The Langham Chicago, the 316-room hotel being constructed on twelve floors of the Mies van Der Rohe designed IBM Building, at 330 North Wabash, anticipating a July opening. Last year, the 212 room Godfrey was also announced for a 2013 completion, and while their website now just says “Coming Soon”, things are definitely stirring.

With the coming of spring, the building has shed its winter coat. The fabric sheeting that protected the innovative staggered-truss frame when the project was in mothballs has been stripped away. According to website where you can follow the hotel's construction, it was not entirely effective. “The old construction site sat for a long time so we needed to remove all the old fire proofing on the building and apply new.”

The facade framing is in place . . .

. . . the exterior walls continue to be affixed . . .

Spring-green Securock glass-mat insulation makes its eye-opening appearance . . .

With the exception of the still empty hole on the site of aborted Chicago Spire, the Exquisite Corpses we wrote about in 2008 have all revived as part of a 2013 construction boom that also includes a new Virgin Hotel in Rapp and Rapp's Old Dearborn Bank Building at Wabash and Lake . . .