Bum Steer: Will the city let Gibson's Steakhouse Ride Herd over Mariano Park??

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[Update, June 26] In his Friday letter to his constituents, 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly stated the while the Chicago Park District will make the ultimate choice of winning bid for food service at Mariano Park, Reilly declared he "will not support a liquor license in Mariano Park.  Further, I do not support a cooking operation in the park, which would require a much larger structure and far more frequent food deliveries . . . "

You can read Reilly's complete statement at the end of this post here.

[Update, June 1] We now have Gibson's handout on their plans for Mariano Park, including a rendering.  See below.

Last February, we wrote about the threat to Mariano Park, a small slice of urban refuge amidst the glitzy bars and restaurants of the "Viagra Triangle", centered by a small pavilion of brick and polychrome terra cotta trim designed by architect Birch Burdette Long in 1899.

This past February, the City of Chicago put out a Concession Opportunity of Notice of Availability for the park, with rumors swirling that Whispers Cafe, which has operated a concession there for 13 years and won awards for the quality of its care of the park, would be replaced by Gibson's Bar and Steakhouse, whose iconic Chicago restaurant is just across the street.

Spring has come, and with it a pleasant surprise.  Whispers Cafe is back for the summer, and the park is again drawing people to relax in an informal setting under its tall trees.

Whispers Cafe contract expires in November, however, and Gibson's appears to be back in the picture.  The Park District is already listing several dozen bids submitted for Mariano Park.  In addition to long-time tenant Whispers, there are bidders include Goddess and Grocer, New York's Shake Shack chain, the Trib's RedEye, several companies hiding behind professional bid-submittal firms, and even the Chicago Park District itself.  Only one, however, seems have to already created a corporation for the project: Restaurant Holdings, LLC dba Gibson Holdings - Mariano Park LLC.

[Update]: The Park District reached out to Curbed Chicago to clarify that some companies on the webpage registered to get the application but have not actually submitted a bid.

Last week, there was word of a public meeting at which a Gibson's representative would present their plans for Mariano Park if/when it won rights to it.  Quickly, however, the public meeting was restated as a private meeting open only to residents of  the 30-story residential building at 100 East Bellevue.

Inquiries made last week both to Gibson's and to the office of 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly as to when the plans might be made public and public hearings held have, as yet, gone unanswered.

So have I seen Gibson's plan?  No, I have not.  Then how do I know they're going to make major changes?  I don't, but this kind of secrecy is usually a red flag.  Especially in this case, in light both of Gibson's heavy clout and history of territorial expansion into public space, and  of how another public oasis, Connors Park just down the street, was turned over to Argo Tea to construct a private building that takes up all but the narrowest part of the park.  At Connors, assurances that the outdoor seating area would continue to be a public park were undercut both by a design that made the patio appear to be a proprietary annex to the restaurant and by area residents sometimes being asked to leave by Argo staff.   New signage was installed to re-declare the park a public amenity, but the new Connors remains a large tea house with a sliver of a park attached to it.

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[Update]

So, courtesy of Gibson's own handout, we now know it's intentions for Mariano Park, and it's pretty much as expected.  The park's historic charm and open space will be eviscerated to create a commercial opportunity.

Where the Birch Burdette Long pavilion is now, Gibson's plans to erect "the Pavilion at Mariano Park."  Not to be confused with the actual historic pavilion that has given the park its character for over a century,  it's projected to be a glassy new structure of 400 square feet (it looks larger), taking up most of the larger southern end of the park.  The Long pavilion itself is to be stripped of any functional purpose and turned into a glassed-in waxworks "to display a 6'0" tall vintage coffee roaster of the same era as the pavilion itself." What Gibson's thinks that era was is anybody's guess, as their handout identifies the Long pavilion as "from the 1920's" - they couldn't even be bothered to do the simplest research on the building's history.  In its new location - assuming the construction crew doesn't somehow "accidentally" wreck it beyond repair during its relocation - it becomes a useless object, obstructing the clear central view that has always existing at the north end of the park, between the trees, towards the pavilion.

At least when Argo's teahouse building took over Connors Park, they left the northernmost sliver mostly intact,  At Mariano, Gibson's uses it as a dumping ground to get the historic pavilion out of the way of their big new glass money machine.

On Restaurant Business Magazine's  2014 list of the Top 100 Independent Restaurants, the Gibson chain had nearly half of the eateries listed for Chicago, taking in over $65 million.  Gibson's and Hugo's Frog Bar, with a combined take of nearly $40 million, are the dining juggernaut of the Viagra Triangle - no one else comes close.

Gibson's is a prized -and very powerful - Chicago institution.  And incredibly successful.  Do we really need to hand over Mariano to them as well?  Patrons already have a wide selection of high-end outdoor dining all along the perimeter of the park.  There's Carmine's across the street to the east . . .

. . . and Tavern on Rush . . .

. .  . Hugo's Frog Bar next to Gibson's . . .

There's al fresco tables at trendy Nico Osteria kitty-corner southeast of the park, and even at Corner Bakery to the northeast . . .

Gibson's, of course, already has its own generous complement of outdoor tables . . .

In 2012, the city gave Gibson's six feet of a public street, narrowing Bellevue Place's 36-foot width  to allow Gibson's to construct a new sidewalk next to the restaurant's patio seating.  Some reports say Gibson's originally proposed taking over the entire street.

You know want the Viagra Triangle needs?  Not heavily-trafficked streets or sidewalks cluttered with tables and pedestrians trying to squeeze through.  That's pretty much the whole Viagra Triangle, in a nutshell.

You know what the Triangle needs?  Open public space.  A place where, after walking down one over-crowded, hyperactive block after another, you stumble upon what an oasis must feel like when encountered in the desert.  Tall, green trees, air and sun, and seats you don't have to ask a hostess for permission to sit in.  You can stop, breathe and refresh. And, if you want, buy an orange juice, or let your kid gaze through the glass and pick his own flavor of gelato.

That's what Mariano Park is,  a small civic treasure.  The Birch Burdette Long pavilion is a graceful, quirky, century-old slice of Chicago history in a place where history has been all but erased. These are things that should neither be sacrificed, nor "improved" to become indistinguishable from everything around it. 

As David Mamet once famously wrote, everybody needs money - that's why they call it money.  You can never feel you have enough, and that's the basic impulse I fear is behind the bid process at Mariano Park.  By all accounts, Whispers Cafe has done a superlative job during its decade-and-a-half stewardship, but really, what's that, when the clouted smell the meat a-cookin' and can't see the trees for the dollar signs?

This is a debate that needs to come out from behind closed doors.  The Park District needs to disclose its criteria for assessing the bids, and Gibson's needs to make their proposal public.  This isn't merely a financial decision; it's a civic, quality-of-life issue.  The basic character of Mariano Park must be preserved, along with the Birch Burdette Long pavilion.  (The fountain from the 1990's is another matter.)  There should be no new construction that clutters up the park, and Mariano should not be allowed to become little more than just another depersonalized outpost of some deep-pocketed chain.

Mariano Park has character, space, and grace - rare qualities that are becoming in even shorter supply as Viagra Triangle developers continue to ramp up neighborhood density and the price-points of the encroaching shops.  That Corner Bakery? It's about to disappear in a major renovation into an upscale retail building.  The Viagra Triangle is party-in-the-fast-lane, bigger than life.  Bigger even than the streaks at Gibson's.  Mariano Park, alone, is comfortably-paced and human-scaled.

Mariano Park is alright.  Don't screw it up.

June 26th statement on Mariano Park by 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly:

A number of neighborhood residents have contacted my office recently with concerns regarding the Chicago Park District concession at Mariano Park. I am writing to provide you with some important details about the coffee concession - which is under the sole discretion of the Chicago Park District, which operates independently of the City Council.

For over 10 years, Whispers Café has operated at Mariano Park under a concession agreement with the Chicago Park District. This agreement is about to expire, which prompted the Chicago Park District to solicit Requests for Proposals and competitive bids for the concession operation in Mariano Park.

The Chicago Park District and their management team are now reviewing competitive bids and will choose the next operator in Mariano Park. As Alderman, I do not play a role in the selection of the concession or operator for Mariano Park; I can only advocate and provide input on the matter.

It is my understanding that roughly 10 bids were submitted for the concession - including "Shake Shack," "Gibson's on behalf of Ralph Lauren" and "Whisper's Café." I also understand some of the bids submitted to the Park District would call for prepared meals and liquor.

As Alderman, I do play a key role in the liquor licensing process in the 42nd Ward. Please note that I will not support a liquor license in Mariano Park. Further, I do not support a cooking operation in the Park, which would require a much larger structure and far more frequent food deliveries and larger volumes of trash that accompany a prepared meal program.

I also have concerns regarding the larger building footprints that have been proposed for Mariano Park. I believe that the concession structure should be of a size similar to the existing, full footprint of the coffeehouse and outside vending envelope in the Park. I am sharing these concerns with Superintendent Mike Kelly of the Chicago Park District.

I strongly encourage you to contact the Chicago Park District to communicate your concerns regarding the future Mariano Park concession, as this is the agency with the jurisdiction over such matters.

You can­ call the Chicago Park District at: (312) 742-7529 or e-mail Mr. Michael Kelly, the General Superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Park District at: michael.kelly@chicagoparkdistrict.com.

It is my pleasure and honor to serve as 42nd Ward Alderman. I look forward to working with you in the future to help keep downtown Chicago a great place to live, work and play.


Some Links:

Chicago Park District Mariano Park Concession Opportunity webpage

Save Mariano Park website

Mariano Park Advisory Council Facebook page

Read More:

Not (Birch Burdette) Long for This World?  Century-Old Mariano Park Out for Bid.

Destroying a Park to Save It: The Tea House that Ate Connors Park

Updates, Day One: No Casino for Wabash?? (And no walkway for you!)

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On Tuesday, the Chicago Architecture Blog reported that an invasion of wrecking equipment had shown up at the long-shuttered Lake Shore Athletic club at 441 North Wabash, best known for its windowless walls and inset blue metal stairway . . .

Back in 2013, we had proposed the bunkered building and its adjoining parking lot as the perfect site for a new Chicago casino.  Last year, we reported on how a developer had assembled the site plus the National Realtors Building on Michigan Avenue in the block just to the east, and was floating a proposal to replace it all with some kind of new mega-tower.  Before any details emerged, however, 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly quickly spiked the idea, citing the city ownership of the viaduct that is topped off by the Plaza of the Americas, which was also rumored to be part of the new tower plan.

Well, I guess it's time to fire up the rumors again.  Or is all we'll see in the indefinite future is still another surface parking lot?  Is the Goat again in jeopardy?  The most annoying part of all of this for us normal people is that the Hubbard Street walkway linking Michigan Avenue to Wabash, which re-opened after repairs not that very long ago, is again closed off.

Read More:

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper, as Billy Goat's, Benito Jaurez and his plaza Contemplate their Future.

Alderman Reilly puts the brakes to the Realtors . . .

Please Tread on Me.

Reilly demands less toppings: declares 45-story Friedman Pizza Hotel tower dead.

In an email report to his constituents released late Friday, 42nd ward Alderman Brendan Reilly announced he would not support River North developer Albert Friedman's plans to construct two separate Hyatt hotels in a single 45-story tower at 740 North Rush abutting and abridging the vintage building that's the long-time home to Giordano's Pizza:

I received a tremendous amount of constituent feedback regarding the proposal and the resounding overall sentiment was serious concern regarding the overall density of the proposal and the major traffic impacts and loading challenges associated with it.

After spending the past two months reviewing the proposal and associated traffic analyses to determine whether changes could properly address these challenges - I have concluded that the proposed 620 hotel keys, split across separate hotel flags, is simply far too ambitious for this location already surrounded by failing intersections (from a traffic engineering perspective) and high-density buildings. 

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I did not reach this conclusion quickly. In fact, I met with the development team on several occasions to explore potential changes or other development options to help make the proposal a better fit for this location. Unfortunately, at the end of that process, it became clear that this proposal simply could not proceed.

As a result, the proposed 620 key hotel development for 740 North Rush Street will not be moving forward. I have encouraged the property owners to carefully consider the limitations posed by the infrastructure around their site and existing traffic conditions, as they contemplate future development concepts.

Reilly did not indicate to what level the project would have to be cut back or reconfigured to meet his approval.  Take a last look at the original glassy skyscraper here . . .

Tactical Insertion: Friedman's 45-story 740 North Rush revealed (from a distance)

Is it Too Early to Start Worrying about Bertrand Goldberg's Walton Gardens? The history of Rush Street through the Eyes of A Single Building

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A city is an energy, a circuit board of dynamic pathways through which the appetites, fears and hopes of individuals smash against each other, in association or exploitation, in pursuit of satisfaction.  Architecture is the expression of these impulses, generating heat, light and, in moments of failure, anxiety, darkness and despair.  Like the city itself, architecture bridges generations and transcends individual mortality.  It is the medium of transmission for the continuity of life.
A perfect city and architecture would be the equivalent of the audiophile's dream of “a wire with gain”, a neutral amplification of individual action but, inevitably, the city and its architecture provide their own “feedback”, which reshapes and alters the actions which they are supposed to express.

As functions change or disappear, buildings may be replaced for new constructions serving new functions, or simply annihilated when functions and cultures lose their meaning and value.  Just as likely, however, the buildings may endure.  They may be altered for new functions, but the accommodations and values inherent in the original construction will often carry forward to influence the new construction in a way a tabula rasa would not.  This is the continuity of the city.

Have I lost you yet?  Rereading the previous paragraphs, I can imagine you finding them abstract -   tl;dr - so I want to try to pump some blood back into the ideas.  I'm going to tell you the story of a single building - Walton Gardens - and how it falls into the history and future of Rush Street, a geographically compact district of Chicago with an exceptionally flavorful personality, one that has gone through several dramatic transformations down through the decades, and seems now on the brink of another.

Few people who pass by the jewel box of a building on the northeast corner of Walton and Rush probably know it's the design of architect Bertrand Goldberg, best known for twin-towered Marina City.  What's evident, however, is that it's an immensely striking building, especially at night when the light shining out from within makes the spare steel frame almost disappear.

Most of us know the building as Urban Outfitters.  Outfitters was originally a couple of blocks north, at 1120 North State, which for a long time had been the neighborhood McDonald's, and for a short time Winkelstein's deli.  In 1996, with the move to the Goldberg building, 1120 North State become home for the Urban Outfitter's spinoff Anthropologie, which in turn moved out in 2010 to part of the former American Girl space on Chicago.  1120 is now a Lou Malnati's pizzeria.

Maple and Ash - initial concept

Recently, Crain's Chicago Business's Micah Maidenberg reported that Urban Outfitters is again moving back north, this time to a stalled building at 1020 North State that replaced the split-level Hunt Club. Originally it was to become Maple and Ash, with a restaurant on the first two floors and a nightclub on the top third story.  The design seemed an homage to early 20th century industrial buildings, with huge windows placed within a spare (faux?) brick and terra cotta frame.

Although fall of 2013 was the target completion date, after the demolition nothing much seemed to be going on at the site.  In mid-December Spy Guy on Skyscraperpage.com unveiled a new, very different rendering.  Out are the big windows in dark-painted frames.  In are four, white-clad stories, with large windows on the first three floors for retail, and an a more enclosed top floor, for a restaurant or club space.

Walton and Maple

And that's not the end of it.  Last September, Crain's also reported that the one-story building at State and Cedar is slated to come down once the leases of current tenants, including a Corner Bakery (formerly a KFC outlet) and Big Bowl restaurant, expire in 2015, to be replaced by a three-story structure with retail at ground level, and a restaurant on the upper floors.

State and Cedar

Upscale retailing has been spilling out beyond its traditional Oak Street home, onto Rush.  With rents of $200+ per square foot, retailing is crowding out the bars, restaurants and clubs that long defined Rush Street as one of Chicago's most famous entertainment strips, upping the ante on density and height.

In 2012, a deal was floated to sell the building housing Carmine's Bar and Lounge -  which began life in the 1960's as the Norge Village Laundromat - for $18 million - about $1,5000 a square foot.  Last month, 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly engineered the downzoning of the old Cedar (Man vs. Margarita) Hotel at 1122 North State to send proposals for a 20-story, 220-room hotel on the site back to the drawing board.

The idea was to get some kind of control on development, but for the Rush Street district, the genie may already be out of the bottle. Last fall, spyguy also revealed elevation drawings by Solomon Cordwell and Buenz for a 335-foot-high condo tower DRW Holdings looks build on the site at State and Elm currently occupied by the largely empty three-story Regina Courts. 

The project, which would have only 35 luxury units, was approved by the Chicago Plan Commission last week.

In the beginning - or at least after the Great Chicago Fire - Rush Street was given over to graystones for the affluent, but as the the 19th century drew to a close, that began to change, no more so than with the construction of the Garibaldi Building on the site where Walton Gardens stands today.   

John G. Garibaldi had been born in Genoa, Italy in 1849.  He came to America as a boy, and entered the fruit business as an employee of another immigrant from Genoa, G.B. Cuneo.  Proving especially proficient in his trade (and marrying the boss's daughter), Garibaldi became a full partner in what would become the firm of Garibaldi and Cuneo, whose operations were found in the South Water Market near where the Kemper/Unitrin Building now stands.  Garibaldi came to be known as the “Banana King” of Chicago, and once lost a lawsuit to a woman named Fanny O'Connor, who claimed, in anticipation of what would become a staple of silent film comedy, to have slipped and fell on one of Garibaldi's errant fruits.  (Bananas would figure more tragically in the life of Cuneo's son Andrew, who was fatally shot in the back of the head by Tony Crescio, a man described in the press as “a partly insane banana handler.”)

Garibaldi building courtesy Chuckman Collection

In addition to being fruit merchants, both Cuneo and Garibaldi were active in Chicago's booming real estate markets.  In 1891, Garibaldi bought the lot with 112 feet on Walton and 54 on Rush and began to transform the single-family character of the street with construction of a new $45,000 structure, designed by the architects Treat and Foltz, “of buff Bedford stone, with galvanized iron cornice and bays.”  The first floor held three retail stores behind large-plate glass windows; the upper three  eighteen apartments, the entire building “to be finished in hardwood and heated by steam.”

In 1917, Garibaldi died after an operation at St. Joseph's Hospital, even as his daughter Clarinda was giving birth to a granddaughter in a room across the way.  The John G. Garibaldi Trust was formed to  manage his holdings, and in 1954 plans were announced by the Trust to demolish the Garibaldi Building for a new structure to be designed by the 41-year-old architect Bertrand Goldberg.  The budget was $100,000, and the leasing agent was Arthur Rubloff.

image courtesy Forgotten Chicago

The Tribune described the project as a “two story office building and store . . . containing 3,000 square feet of space on each floor, constructed of steel, brick and glass.”  Before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 halted new construction, upscale retail had meant classically-styled facades of cut stone with Art Deco details.  Now, Goldberg was bringing modernism to Chicago's storefronts, with an open, steel-framed, glass-enclosed jewel box, trimmed in pristine white.

Walton Garden's upper floor became the long-time home to Bill Putnam's Universal Recording Company, whose studios recorded everyone from Nelson Riddle to Nat King Cole and Quincy Jones. From their original location in Hyde Park, Bordelons home furnishing and interior decorating service became Walton Garden's primary ground floor retail tenant, opening on January 8, 1956.  Pittsfield Building bookseller Max Siegel also expanded to Walton Gardens, promising “the world's most exciting bookshore.  Each of the four walls on the main floor will be entirely of glass, with sliding glass doors opening from the lobby and ‘magic eye’ doors opening from the street.   Everything on the ground floor will be visible from the street and the lobby.”

“The project is a result of my faith in Chicago's future as a leading book center,” said Siegel.  “Business is very good in this city, and it's going to get even better.”

In this, Siegel may have been a bit too optimistic.  I was unable to find the exact date and reason for the transition, but by 1957, the Ritts Company of 1138 South Michigan was moving into the Bordelons retail space.  More to the point, Walton Gardens may have been a little bit too far ahead of the curve on a Rush Street that was becoming Chicago's red light district, often described as Chicago's New Orleans, a strip of bars and nightclubs.  At the top end was Mr. Kelly's, the legendary venue that opened in 1957 and booked the hippest acts of the day, from Sara Vaughan to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.  Tony Bennet sang at the Living Room, and talked about spending the night hopping from one club to the next.  It was a jumping time.  If you had your hair done at Shears and Cheers on Rush, you might find yourself sitting under a hair dryer next to Barbra Streisand.

In the basement of Walton Gardens was Dave Falzone's Cafe Continental, described as “a colorful, underground labyrinth, lighted and decorated to simulate a gloried sidewalk cafe.  A picturesque little corridor connects the main dining room with a smaller one, La Contina, directly beneath the Walton Place sidewalk, and some of the interesting stone walls are what is left of the vintage Garibaldi Building.”

Clearly, Walton Gardens was meant to take Rush Street to a more sedate, upscale dimension, but it was too much to expect from one building.  As the 1960's dawned, Rush Street, with its clubs, salons, Franksville and all-night laudromat was pushing more towards raunch, with attractions with names like Pussycat Lounge and Whiskey-a-Go-Go.  After Dave Falzone left the Cafe Continental, he was indicted for possessing $14,000 of stolen liquor.  By 1962, Walton Gardens became home to the  rUmPuS rOom, the “Newest swank Twistery and Dinner-Breakfast Spot.”  In 1966, it was a club called Sneeky Pete's, and, later, The Talk of the Town.  Described as a topless bar, The Talk was raided multiple times in 1973 for B-girl operations, where attractive young women would entice conventioneers to buy them drinks costing anywhere from $3.75 to as high as $15.00 (and sometimes leading them to darkened booths where sexual favors were provided for a price.)  In the end, Walton Gardens didn't change Rush Street. Rush Street brought Walton Gardens down to its own level.

photograph: the Chuckman Collection

Mr. Kelly's closed in 1975, but the street had already began to change when Kelly's was rebuilt after a 1966 fire as part of a project anchored by a 39-story apartment tower.  Mister Kelly's became the upscale Sweetwater bar and restaurant.  The former laundromat became the Chicago outpost of the GuadalaHarry's chain.  The fashionable Harry's Cafe was right next door, but the queen of the new Rush Street was the nightclub Faces.  

image Calumet 412

Opened in 1971, it beat Studio 54 to the disco craze by four years.  With memberships originally going for $500, Faces was the place to be seen and have close encounters with the celebrities of the time, from Telly Savalas, to Sonny Bono, Elke Sommer and Tom Jones.  You know - that whole crowd.  Faces was the place where Frank Sinatra and 40 friends celebrated -  until 6 in the morning - his engagement to the former Barbara Marx.
In August of 1977, at a cost of $1.5 million, Walton Gardens became the home to the Chicago outpost of the upscale California-based Hamburger Hamlet chain, with 185 seats and paneling from Winston Churchill's office.  The former Prime Minister's private elevator was purchased and deployed as Booth 1.

Faces closed in 1989.  Rush Street had followed the usual trajectory of enormous success spawning ever-higher rents forcing out the tenants who made the district popular.  The singles bars moved over to Division Street.  Harry's Cafe was replaced by the massive Tavern on Rush, and soon Rush Street was what's now known as the Viagra Triangle, where moneyed middle-aged libidos chase young women usually far shrewder than they let on.  The Faces building was torn down for the new Barney's store.

Hamburger Hamlet moved out of Walton Gardens in 1988.    Urban Outfitters took over in 1996, the address now 935 North Rush.  Sometime this year or next, they'll be gone.  What's next?  The owner of the building, JMB Realty, which also owns the Shops at 900 North Michigan, said in a statement published by Crain's “There's a huge amount of interest for what is one of the best retail corners in Chicago.”   Could they be thinking there might be even more interest with a larger building?

Walton Gardens is a largely overlooked work in the Goldberg canon.   It earns only a fleeting reference in the Catalog for the Art Institute's 2012 show on the architect, and the essential 1984 monograph Dans La Ville seems not to mention it at all.

The building as it exists today is a mannerist revision of Goldberg's original design.  In the original a thin canopy wrapped around the top perimeter of the ground floor, flags flew on the masts along the roofline, and the metal frame appears to have to been painted white.  Now, the canopy has been removed.  Only the open metal frame remains, now an industrial reddish-brown.  The masts, shorn of their pennants, appear as functionless stumps.  The mechanical penthouse desperately needs some tender loving care.

What remains a constant, however, is the striking transparency Max Siegel bragged about back in 1955.   Ironically enough, stripping the canopy bare gives that transparency further emphasis.

You can argue which is better, the original or the revision - do you prefer the Young Elvis or the Vegas Comeback Elvis?  What's indisputable, however, is that Walton Gardens is the most distinctive building on Rush Street.  During the day, the wear and tear may be visible, but at night, it's an unmitigated stunner.  And Rush Street has always been made for the night.  Even as everything around it has changed - several times - Walton Gardens endures as the bridge of memory and visual anchor of Rush Street.  It's a keeper.

The Art of the Pitch: Selling Goettsch Partner's 53-story 150 North Riverside to the Neighbors

150-Riverside from gene molchanov on Vimeo.

This Wednesday, January 8th at 12:15 p.m. at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Steven M. Nilles and Joachim Schuessler of Goettsch Partners will be offering a preview of the firm's latest Chicago project, 150 North Riverside.   Details here.

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How do you sell a skyscraper?  If you're in the middle of Chicago's Loop, you don't, really.  You fill out the forms, talk to all the right people, get the approvals, find tenants, land the financing, and start the job.  If you're in an area you share with residential buildings, however, the process becomes a bit more complex.

42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly consults with a constituent

If you have an alderman like the 42nd ward's Brendan Reily, who's fairly conscientious about such things, there are public hearings to bring developers and residents together, and often it's a clash between two very different cultures.  The developer inhabits the macro culture, populated by  accomplished specialists and connected insiders.  Residents inhabit the micro culture, reflecting personal experience and day-to-day, moment-to-moment concerns such as traffic, shadows, light and views.  When things get tense, developers, and the those in their wide, informal support structure, often paint those in the micro culture as NIMBY's, hidebound opponents of anything new or progressive, consumed by narrow self-interest.  And truth be told, some people at public hearings do exhibit a vision so constricted that a horse in blinders would look upon it with pity.

It is entirely reasonable, however, that not only those with big bucks and big plans, but the people who have created and sustained the communities that are about to be transformed also have their voices heard.  Sometimes what would seem to be obvious questions can evoke the best answers, and that was the case at a well-attended Reilly-sponsored late-summer public meeting at the Hotel Allegro, where residents got their first in-depth look at plans for a 53 story, 700-foot-skyscraper, 150 North Riverside, on a site next to and over Amtrak tracks that has been vacant for fifty years.

150 North Riverside is the maiden project of developer John O'Donnell following his 2010 retirement as CEO of the John Buck Company, where he had a 28-year history.  “This is a site I pursued,” said O'Donnell,  “for roughly a decade in my prior job.”  He seemed genuinely proud of his new baby, and

John O'Donnell

the presentation by his team was perhaps the best I've ever encountered, exceptionally well-prepared not just to pitch the preferred talking points, but anticipate community concerns.  (The one glaring exception was when an audience question about migratory bird collisions found O'Donnell's team taking on a deer-in-the-headlights look that suggested this was a topic that somehow had never come up in rehearsal.)

One audience member, a local businessman fashioning himself an amateur expert on real estate who had conducted his own extensive research, launched into an extended argument that, with office vacancy rates currently hovering around 17%, no anchor tenant yet announced, and only one  -DLP Piper - still in play and most likely headed to the already under-construction River Point tower, the most relevant question about O'Donnell's $450 million project was “Why?’

Rather than the polite, vague answers that would be the usual developer's response to such a query, O'Donnell, instead, turned to U.S. Equities' Drew Neiman. Neiman is another long-time (27 year) former Buck-ite.  In his new role at U.S. Equities, managing the leasing of 150 North Riverside, he offered a revealing look inside the mind of a developer as he calculates the odds on a project such as this . . .

The marketplace in general has about 145 million square feet in the CBD [Central Business District].  So we'll call that the denominator.  As you stated, the average vacancy - it depends upon the report - probably it can go anywhere from 13.3 to 14.5% vacant depending on who you talk to, and how they record vacancy and occupancy.  

If you would go to buildings that are similar to [150 North Riverside], we call those 

Drew Neiman

Class A+,  really technology robust type buildings.  That equates to about 10% of the total amount of square footage in Chicago, so of the 145 million, about 14 or 15 million are buildings similar to this.  Buildings that have been been developed since 2000.  So they've got floor-to-ceiling glass, 45 foot core to glass dimension, robust vertical risers for electrical and telecommunications.  These are buildings that are the next wave and the new generation. 

The vacancy rate of that 10% of what you call the cream-of-the crop, if you will, is between 3 to 5%.  That's 10% below the rest of the market.  That means that there is a demand for those type of buildings.  Every one of those buildings that have been built since 2000 has leased up.  The reason, as you state, [is] today corporations - including law firms, consulting firms - are all trying to fit more people into less space.  So they're consolidating, or in some cases you talked about even subleasing some space or giving it back.  Or if they can, relocate to a new building where they have a better floorplate, a more robust infrastructure that can handle their needs in less square footage.  And so as a result, there is a demand there.  This submarket is very healthy and there is a demand.

When pressed on whether the project had an anchor tenant in sight, Neiman was a bit more vague . . .

We can only reveal so much here tonight.  Let me just say this, that we wouldn't have proceeded and spent the money and done what we've done, if we didn't think that there was a demand with anchor tenants whose leases expire in 2016 , 2017, possibly even 2018.  And so we've done our homework and we know who's out there.  We're feeling very comfortable that this will be well received.

The questioner was right about DLP Piper.   In July, the firm announced they were moving to River Point, committing to 175,000 of that project's million square feet.  Neiman seems also to have been correct about 150 North Riverside.  Late last month, William Blair and Company announced they're planning to move to 150 North in 2017, taking up about a quarter (300,000) of O'Donnell's 1.2 million square feet.  O'Donnell is claiming construction will begin this coming summer.

There were also questions at the community meeting on 150 North Riverside's Design.  We'll be taking those up in our next post.

Read  More:

Giant Punch Stamp on the River?  First Renderings for 150 North Riverside office tower and park - Revealed and Considered.

John Ronan walks us through his first skyscraper, 151 Franklin

click images for larger view - photo courtesy John Buck Company

“Here's the site,” said Dominic Adducci, “I think we all agree it could use a little attention and love.”

In the eyes of the site's owner - and Adducci's boss - developer John Buck, “a little attention and love” comes in the form of a 36-story office tower, to be named after its address, 151 Franklin.  Buck was in attendance but let Adducci do the talking for him at last Monday's community meeting on the project presented by 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly. (Reilly has made Buck's Powerpoint presentation available for download here.)

It's the initial step of a public review process that he hopes will end in the demolition of the Walgreen's currently on the site next July and the first tenants moving in to his shiny structure in September of 2016.

Rendering: John Ronan Architects

The skyscraper is the first tower to be designed by Chicago architect John Ronan, best known for his school designs such as Christ the King and Gary Comer College Prep, and the striking new home for the Poetry Foundation. Ronan spoke about the challenges of designing a skyscraper in a video presented at the meeting . . .

For me the most unique and interesting challenge of this is how do you take this building type of which there are hundreds and hundreds of buildings and do something unique.  And I think we've rethought it from a different vantage point - not from a formal aspect but from more of a spatial aspect, so the character of the building is really comprised of two contrasting qualities.  We have this very earthbound, heavy base of the building which is out of a basalt stone which is actually a gray volcanic rock .  The contrast with that is the tower itself, which is very clean, light and technical in appearance.  What this building is about is experiencing it and being inside of it and finding that place in which you feel comfortable.  And it's about new discoveries.  It's not something you understand in a single glance.  It's something you have to go through, walk through, experience it and when you leave you say: Wow - you know, that was really great.  

Rendering: John Ronan Architects

The idea of solid stone at the base and a lighter cladding above hearkens back to Chicago's earliest skyscrapers, many of which featured rough-cut ashlar stone at the bottom providing the appearance of a solid foundation to the tall shaft with its thinner cladding - in brick, stone or terra cotta - that more frankly expressed the structure's metal frame.  

After Adducci provided an overview to the project - 25,000 square-foot, column-free floorplates, 825,000 square-feet overall, with retail and restaurants on the ground floor and a sky garden on the roof, Toronto's skyscraper associates Adamson Associates as architects-of-record, and Lend-Lease as the general contractor - he turned the meeting over to Ronan to walk attendees through the project.  We captured his talk below, complete with our usual bad sound, out-of-focus photography and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari camera angles . . .

One of the more interesting aspects or Ronan's design is his concept of public space.  At 151 Franklin, a large amount of the open plaza space is actually tucked under the building.

155 North Wacker, Arcade looking towards 151 Franklin site

Unlike the grand arcade at Buck's 155 North Wacker, just across the street, Ronan seems to be encouraging people to linger, with cafe seating and steps made for sitting.  (This actually evoked stress in one meeting attendee who anticipated the open area becoming a smokers haven that would force her to walk in the middle of the street to be able to get a breath of fresh air.)

Rendering: John Ronan Architects

Even more interesting is the second-level garden terrace  reached by a thin, long staircase rising up from Randolph Street. 

Placed in a sliver between 151 Franklin and the parking garage structure next door, this would be a public space that would both serve the new building and serve as a sheltered refuge from the bustle of the street.  

Buck says the rude facade of the parking garage will receive a more attractive surfacing, and he's bought the air rights above the garage to prevent another tower from rising next to 151 Franklin.

Ronan's multi-level lobby . . .

Rendering: John Ronan Architects

. . . reminds me of the one in Harry Weese's 1969 Time-Life Building . . . 

For all of its more progressive aspects, Buck has carefully engineered his tower to serve the new feudalism of our supply chain world.  Despite increasing reports casting doubt on the efficacy of those work-benched open offices currently so in vogue with management, Buck, in a video, sells the concept not as a command-and-control strategy coming down from above, but as something workers supposedly are clamoring for: “A more recent change is that as young people enter the workplace they want a different environment, more casual, more interfacing with their colleagues, so the private office is not disappearing, but it's on the wane.”  Similarly, much was made of the fact that Buck's building's 34 parking spaces actually represents a reduction in the number of spaces of the surface lot currently on the site, but those spaces aren't for just anyone - they're 34 “executive spaces.”  Like open-space offices, transit-oriented development is a great thing to force on 151 Franklin's 3,600 rank and file employees, so long as it doesn't affect the habits of the top brass. 

Is 151 Franklin coming late to the party when, only a few blocks way, a million-square-foot River

Dominc Adduci

Point is already under construction, and a 1.2 million square foot 155 North Riverside is well on its way to groundbreaking?  Are there any anchor tenants left to be had?

“All three of the projects are in the lease stages right now,” answered Adducci.   “The finance part of this project I can tell you that, having been with other developers for many years before coming to The Buck Company, it's very conservatively financed.  Over half of the project costs are equity,  so the actual debt on the project is quite low.  And we are working on several major tenants right now who are prospective at this point.”

Rendering: John Ronan Architects

Previously:

Great Architect is Fleeting; Ugly Garages Forever

Is White Modesty the new Overreaching Ambition?  200 West Randolph