Weekly News Column Opinion and Laughs on The Record
Got $25 Million?
Jeff Borgardt's Soundoff from Summit 5/26/05
For those of you interested in Chicago’s skyline, I attended
a
lecture presented by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architects at the
Chicago Cultural Center Sunday.
They are building the 92-story Trump Tower at the site of the
former Chicago Sun-Times building. The Sun-Times evacuated
the building last fall and construction has since kicked into high
gear.
The building is slated to become the second largest in the
country and will be just a few feet lower than the Sears Tower.
The Trump will house mostly high-end condos and hotel rooms.
In a unique twist, the hotel rooms will be sold to individual
investors. The owners may then use the room at their leisure.
When they are not using the room, hotel managements will rent it
out for them.
The building will have parking spaces that cost only $62,500
apiece and a decadent health club. Top floor penthouses will be
the highest residential dwellings in the world and an entire-floor
condo penthouse is available atop the Trump for a mere $25
million.
The Trump Tower initially planned to include office space but
changed course when interest for condos outstripped office space
inquiries. At 122-stories, the building was slated to become the
nations tallest but was scaled back after 9/11 because salesmen
determined it would be easier to sell if it wasn’t so tall.
Now the building is tabbed at 92 stories, however, some of the
floors are named off-key and the building is really going to be
higher than that. The building is expected to be finished in 2009
and foundation construction has began. The architect Sunday
joined Chicago’s illustrious builders condemning Chicago’s
rough, tough underground soil frozen by a glaciers thousands of
years ago.
The City of Chicago doesn’t allow demolition with fireworks and
dynamite so the Sun-Times building was dismantled
“brick-by-brick” at the Chicago River/Wabash site adjacent to the
IBM Building and the Marina Towers. Walking down the Michigan
Avenue Chicago River bridge, one can now get an eyeful of the
modernist IBM Building that once towered over the workingman’s
Sun-Times building.
When the trump is completed, the IBM will be blocked out and the
view will shift from the magnificent to the next-door building. But
those in the IBM won’t be the only ones looking at the Trump
building. It will jut into Chicago’s skyline as a major feature along
with the Sears Tower and the John Hancock building—which
currently has the world’s tallest residential condos.
The Trump Tower will not include an observation deck. The
building is expected to include a park area and river walk on the
ground level outside of the lobby.
The shape is similar to the Sears Tower, only narrower as the
Trump architects are the same that designed the Sears Tower in
the 1970’s. Then, there is Trump himself. While he’s no John
Hancock, this flamboyant tycoon is always doing something of
note.
The Trump Casino Company emerged from Chapter 11
bankruptcy this week. On Monday, the reality-tv star announced his
latest venture: Trump University. This for-profit school will not
proffer “traditional “ degrees but will instead offer business and
marketing advice to students.
Trump has also earned jeers recently for trashing the design of
the new Freedom Tower to be erected at the World Trade Center
site in New York City. So if you have $25 million burning a hole in
your pocket?
Freedom Tower aside, due to narrower streets, smaller city
blocks, no alleys and zoning rules, New York buildings are
generally smaller than their Chicago counterparts. Chicago’s
skyline touts three of the four nations largest buildings - Sears,
Hancock and the Aon Center. The Empire State Building is the only
New Yorker of equal heights. OK, then.
Looking downtown, what will we see thanks to the Don? Viewed
from afar, the skyline’s south-end will still be anchored by the
Sears Tower, the north end by Hancock and the Trump will join the
Amaco in the central loop.