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American developer Related Midwest has resumed construction on the 400 Lake Shore skyscraper in Chicago on a site that has experienced more than a decade’s worth of revisions and delays.
Construction teams in Chicago have begun work on the foundation for the 72-storey skyscraper designed by SOM.
Images show workers filling the giant foundation hole that has been left at the site alongside the Chicago River on Lake Michigan for nearly twenty years.
The site was originally slated to hold The Spire, a mega-tall skyscraper designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava that was ultimately cancelled due to the financial and logistical problems. The original plan for the structure would have made it the tallest building in the world at the time, if completed.
In 2016, after years of legal disputes, the plan was finally scrapped, and Related Midwest, a creditor on the original project, commissioned Chicago-based SOM to completely redesign the site. In 2020, the developer announced that the height of the proposed towers had been reduced.
The result was a pair of skyscrapers, the tallest having 76 storeys – a design approved by the local planning commission.
Currently, construction is underway on the taller of the two towers, the northern one, with massive amounts of concrete and steel being added into the hole to create the foundations for the SOM skyscraper.
The construction began on 29 February, with hundreds of trucks working to pour nine million pounds of concrete to form the initial foundation for the new building.
Construction will not start on the second tower until completion of the first tower, which is due to open in 2027.
Adjacent to the skyscraper site is DuSable Park, a public park that the original developers pledged to remediate during the initial design phases for the Spire.
Eventually, the park was cleared of thorium deposits from its prior industrial usage, and was made home to an installation by local architect and AIA gold medal-winner Carol Ross Barney during last year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial. A further build out of the park is part of current development plans.
Other skyscrapers currently under construction in Chicago include 1000 M by local architecture studio Jahn in South Loop.
Images courtesy of Related Midwest.
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