Latest plans aim to break curse on Chicago Spire site
The 76-foot-deep foundation hole of the never-built Chicago Spire is a civic embarrassment, a pockmark on the cityscape.
So it’s easy to understand why Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s urban planners and downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, are desperate to fill the cursed hole, a legacy of the twisting, 2,000-foot vision of architect Santiago Calatrava.
In doing that, however, they’re cutting a lousy deal for the people of Chicago.
That became clear Tuesday when developer Related Midwest unveiled revised plans for two residential towers of unequal height on the 2.2-acre Spire site at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, which has been vacant for 12 years. The changes show a watering-down of the project’s previously arresting skyline presence and a weakening of its contribution to a network of public spaces that was envisioned in the 1980s during the term of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African American mayor.
The broader context here is the ongoing redevelopment of the area once known as Cityfront Center, a 60-acre swath of mostly residential high-rises, hotels, shops and vacant lots between Navy Pier and Michigan Avenue. During Washington’s tenure, the city rezoned the once-gritty zone of factories and warehouses, allowing developers to build tall in exchange for beautiful buildings, streets, parks, plazas and a riverwalk.
Yet Cityfront Center, while a real estate success, has never lived up its urban design promise. As I documented in a 2018 article, the architecture, with rare exceptions, is mediocre. And the area’s public spaces, including a riverwalk, are unfinished, underachieving and even, in one case, off-limits to the public. Another Cityfront Center public space, the proposed DuSable Park east of Lake Shore Drive — a 3.4-acre green space named for Chicago’s first non-Native American settler, Jean Baptiste-Pointe du Sable has never been built. The same goes for the Spire site, Cityfront Center’s most prominent stretch of dirt.
Related Midwest’s latest plan for 400 Lake Shore Drive, as the project is known, improves in some respects on its first version, which was designed by the respected architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, but drew howls of protest from neighbors after it was unveiled in 2018.
By eliminating a 175room hotel from the project’s south tower, the revised plan, also designed by Skidmore, promises to substantially reduce the amount of taxi and ridesharing traffic on East North Water Street, the skinny little road that will lead, incongruously, to the massive project.
In another good stroke, the developers ditched a low-rise structure, known as a podium, that would have served as a base for the two towers and contained a hotel ballroom and amenities including a gym. Instead, both towers will come directly down to street level, making the project less fortresslike and, potentially, more engaged with its environs.
“A lot of progress has been made. It’s certainly headed in the right direction,” Reilly said Tuesday at a community meeting that he co-organized with the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, an influential neighborhood group.
Other changes, however, are for the worse.
Originally, the two towers — each six-sided, with dramatically cascading east-facing exteriors — were to have stood 1,100 feet tall (the south tower) and 850 feet tall (the north tower). Even if Skidmore’s rationale for their design — that the towers had walked together to the waterfront and turned in different directions to take in the view — was little more than a rhetorical conceit, they promised to be a powerful presence.
But now, the north tower, which will house 600 apartments, is the taller one, at 875 feet. The south tower, whose 500 units could be apartments or condos, based on demand, has been trimmed to 765 feet. In part, the architects confirmed in an email, the change happened because Related plans to use the Spire’s long-dormant foundation to support the taller building.
That step makes sense practically, but not formally. There was a strong urban design logic to marking the meeting of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan with a soaring landmark that helped form a gateway from the lake to the city. Instead, we’re left with a diminished version of the original design, not just in height but in aesthetic impact. When the big picture drops in quality, attractive details, like the bay windows and terra cotta accents that are planned here, can only compensate so much.
There is more disappointing news at ground level, where significant changes have been made.
The architects wisely followed the 1980s blueprint for Cityfront Center by proposing the completion of two paths that would link the city and the lakefront. One path is the existing Riverwalk. The other is a narrow promenade along the south side of the Ogden Slip, a canal-like channel of water named for Chicago’s first mayor and the original developer of the Cityfront Center area, William B. Ogden.
In the revised design, an extension of the Ogden Slip promenade to the lakefront has been dropped, a concession to residents of adjoining town houses who said that noisy, unruly pedestrians have disrupted their peace and quiet. Instead, there will be a single entry from the Riverwalk to DuSable Park. A rendering from Skidmore shows a tunnel-like passageway that begins beneath a perforated metal screen that shields the towers from Lake Shore Drive.
The city’s Department of Planning and Development justifies the change by citing new design guidelines that recommend a landscaped buffer between public paths along waterfronts and private homes. No such buffer exists along the Ogden Slip, it says. The department also argues that a single “stylized entry” to DuSable Park will help activate the Riverwalk.
Maybe so. But this marks the second time that private “safety concerns” — the department’s doublespeak for residents’ “not in my backyard” mindset — have prevailed over the need to improve access.
The first came when neighbors of another part of Cityfront Center, the CityView Condominiums at 440 and 480 N. McClurg Court, forced the gating of a public promenade that cut through the project. Instead of restoring public access, city officials in 2012 granted the CityView Condominium Association’s request to eliminate it.
What also became clear Tuesday is that a completed DuSable Park is at least five years away from opening, this after decades of delays since 1987 when the Washington administration gave the land its current name.
Related Midwest plans to use the undeveloped park land as a construction staging area. The construction, which Related wants to start early next year, is expected to take 3 1⁄2 years. Only then would park work begin. Can you say 2025?
Another question: What will the developer provide to the city in return for use of that public land?
Granted, Related has promised $10 million toward the construction of the park, but that’s roughly the same amount that Garrett Kelleher, the developer of the Spire, offered for the green space. Accounting for inflation since 2008, Related’s donation should be $12 million or more, factoring in future price rises.
So far, the city has shown no sign that it will require of Related what it has required of other developers: They must complete promised public spaces in the first phase of a multiphase project before later phases can proceed.
That would prevent Related from simply writing a check to the Chicago Park District and then proceeding to build the second tower — whether or not the Park District can come up with the funds to build DuSable Park, with an overall cost pegged at $20 million. The district is spending $6 million on sea wall replacement and environmental remediation, which is expected to be finished this spring.
All this presumes, of course, that the coronavirus crisis does not throw the economy into recession, which could further delay Related’s plans for 400 Lake Shore Drive. Were that to happen, events would have come full circle: The Spire may have been an economic pipe dream, but the Great Recession certainly helped to kill it.
You have to wonder: Is this site cursed?