Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Trump Riverwalk begins to Take Shape

For years, even as Trump Tower soared to its full 1362-foot height, this is what the adjacent riverwalk looked like:Reading about all of Trump's battles with his lenders, and the reports of the imploding real estate market, it made you wonder if the money had dried up, and all we'd be left with was the huge gravel pit filled with construction paraphernalia that included what looked like a giant wooden wok.

It didn't help that last September Crain's Chicago Business reported that Trump was having trouble finding restaurants and businesses to lease the four-level riverwalk's 83,000 square feet of retail space, and had hired a broker to pitch it for a price upwards of $130 million.

What looked like a radical value engineering on the some of the signage was also discomforting.
Recently, however, the site has been abuzz with activity.
The odds are looking better and better that we may finally get back the Wabash segment of the riverwalk that has been closed since just before the old Sun-Times building was demolished in 2003. Maybe it will even look as good as in the renderings.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I find it funny that the river is blue in the renderings