Is White Modesty the new Overreaching Ambition? 200 West Randolph

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I was going to write a post about the relatively modest, 23-story skyscraper J. Paul Beitler is planning to build on the site of this old parking garage at 200 West Randolph, but the Sun-Times Chicago Grid's David Roeder beat me to it (registration required), and basically said most of what I wanted to write. (Although he got the name of architectural firm wrong - it's actually by James DeStefano of Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture - not Dirk, but Avi.)

The current garage includes one of the Chicago Loop Alliance's Pop-Up Art Galleries, now featuring Self: Coming Soon by Gerry Santora.

The new 200 West Randolph will up the ante by commissioning Dale Chihuly to create one of his popular glass sculptures for the building's white marble lobby.

The project is shooting for Silver LEED, but perhaps the developer's most interesting talking point is how 200 West is supporting TOD (no, not death - transit oriented design) by actually eliminating 375 current parking spaces.  According to the project narrative, “The development team has worked diligently in response to the City’s planning goals of reducing public parking spaces near public transit facilities.”  The current seven-story garage has 510 spaces; the new building only 135, on three floors placed at the bottom of the building so as to keep much of the noise of the Loop L beneath the office floors above.  They're also eliminating curb cuts on Randolph and Wells. Access to the garage will be via the alley (Couch Place) to the north. 

Roeder reports that 200 West will be the first new downtown office building since 2010, and the $140 million project is shooting for a 2015 completion.  Get your orders into Eat and Drink now.

Landmarks, Ty Tabbing on State Street today - March calendar . . . soon

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Spring was in the air Wednesday - for all about two hours.  What better time not to do necessary work?   So, the March calendar isn't quite ready yet.  I forgot to feed the cat and he gnawed away the "M" key on my keyboard.  I don't think it agreed with him, 'cause when he thew up, it was only an "N". Maybe the rest will come out later.

But I digress.

So here's a heads-up that today, Thursday, March 1st, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks holds its monthly meeting at 12:45 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 121 North LaSalle, Room 201-A, marking still another month of being missing-in-action on the most important preservation issue currently in play in Chicago:  protecting Bertrand Goldberg's iconic Prentice Hospital from Northwestern's determination to destroy it for an empty lot.

Over at the Millennium Room at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington, at 12:15 p.m., Friends of Downtown puts on its monthly brown bag luncheon lecture (white bags also ok, clear plastic, no - nobody wants to have to look at all the stuff you're about to eat).

Ty Tabbing of the Chicago Loop Alliance will "present a talk on the history and the remake of State Street over the past two decades, including the removal of the mall."  Tabbing had written to us last November, when we had some rude things to say about the Alliance's Lightscape project, that the Alliance's Pop-Up Art program, using the windows of empty storefronts as temporary galleries, was still a going concern, and he's proven true to his word.

Pictured at the top of this post is a Pop-Up display of Scott Williams "past and present screen printed posters that have a heavy r&B/soul feel.  His posters have gained a cult following here in Chicago."  It's on display 24/7 in the street-level windows of the long-empty Holabird and Roche Century Building at 202 South State, owned by the Federal government.  With the new canopy and display windows, the GSA has turned what was once a derelict corner with rotting scaffolding into a handsome Loop amenity.

There's also, Artists Without Borders, the work of Liz Miller and Baltazar Castillo in the windows of the former Borders store at 150 North State.  I was looking at the work in one of those windows when a guy came up to me - "Hey, I see you looking at this.  You know, I was in the alley across the street over there by the theater and I looked down and I saw this piece of wood and it was shaped just like a dagger.  It looked just like this art in the window here, see?  I was thinking of just laying it down in front of the window, but then I said, nah, that wouldn't probably be right."

But I digress.

And now . . .

. . . a beaver with a stick . . .

from  the exhibition, Loop Value: The How Much Does it Cost? Shop, at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan

So I have to go back to the calendar now, or maybe just lie down.

A follow-up on Lightscape; Pop-Up Galleries still alive

Yesterday afternoon, we received a note from the Chicago Loop Alliance's Ty Tabbing regarding my post on the new Lightscape installation on State Street, admirably restrained considering how rough I was on the project.  Mr. Tabbing informs me that the listing I noticed in some of the "reeds" - the individual light poles - is actually intended to help withstand Chicago's winds - with today's 40mph gusts, they'll get a workout - and mimic the movement of Midwest prairie grass.  He also challenges my characterization of Lightscape as a "one-size-fits-all" solution with a reminder that it was designed specifically for the State Street site.  It was not my intention to suggest otherwise, and if that was the impression I gave, I apologize.  When I wrote "one-size-fits-all", it's referring not to the origin of its design, but to the generic nature of the project.  Changing the color palette and music at different times of year doesn't disguise the fact the entire thing is numbingly uniform, to the point where I believe Lightscape will ultimately become as invisible as a street lamp, which by the way, actually have more varied decoration by replacing the globes with Jack O'Lanterns for Halloween, golden baubles for Christmas, etc.

More importantly, Mr. Tabbing corrects what he says was a quote taken out of content in Crain's.  While the decreasing vacancy rate on State has reduced the venues for display, Mr. Tabbing assures me - and I hope he won't mind me quoting him here - "Pop-Up galleries were, and will remain, an important strategy to bring art and artists into the Loop."  And that's very good news.