Abandoned - Chicago Spire

What's up guys? My name is Jake and welcome to episode 59 of Abandoned from virtually every angle. Downtown Chicago is a spectacular urban center with an inviting skyline, especially from the air. This dense urban core appears even more impressive and sprawling, except for a notable section of undeveloped land right at the mouth of the Chicago River. What is even more mysterious is the enormous man-made hole in the ground, but in reality they are the remains of one of the most ambitious skyscraper projects in North America; Not only would it have been the tallest tower in Chicago and the United States, but at the time the entire world, this was truly a momentous project that was set to shape Chicago's skyline forever.

However, when construction began on this monolithic tower, everything stopped, so join me today as we discuss what this infamous project was all about. will become how millions of dollars were wasted on a dream so close to becoming a reality and how an 80-foot-deep foundation remains

abandoned

to this day. This is the Chicago

spire

. This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. Click the link in the description below to get a free trial of Skillshare premium membership In 2005, Christopher Carly and his development organization, the Fordham company, proposed a super-tall skyscraper reaching 116 floors with a high transmission at the top.

The tower was designed by esteemed architect Santiago Calatrava, the same designer who created the tower. torso and also who created the oculus in the World Trade Center. His portfolio shows a wide range of fluid and natural approaches to designing the Fordham

spire

that was to be the ultimate apotheosis of this. A sinuous curtain of glass rising over neighborhoods. below a building that would be a continuous spiral to the top, the location of this project was established in a usable park, an undeveloped piece of land along the lakeside road; However, because the road is spliced ​​through the middle of the plot, the surface area of ​​the tower only takes up about 2 acres of land, meaning it would have to be fairly thin at least for the area and time.

In early 2006, the Chicago plan commission had approved the tower to proceed despite this, however, Fordham was having trouble finding adequate financing to achieve it. The ongoing project eventually sold its land and the project's intellectual property to an Ireland-based company called Shelbourne Development Company. Garrett Kelleher was its CEO and now, with his own money behind the concept, development of the tower moved forward with city approval. Restrictions were lifted and plans grew into a condo tower with a maximum height of 2,000 feet and the name now changed to simply Chicago Spire. This new design also eliminated the radio tower, turning the skyscraper into a 150-story, 1,193-unit super condominium building the spire.

It would rise well above Chicago's already tallest building, the Sears Tower, and would have become the tallest building on the planet. That title, however, would have been surpassed by Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which would open in 2010. Regardless, this tower was enormous. and a quite unique architectural piece for its time; In fact, careful consideration was given to how the design would affect natural phenomena such as bird migrations, and the winding tower would allow each apartment to have a slightly unique floor plan that was promised to be eco-friendly. friendly and with minimal disturbance to the otherwise quiet neighborhood, it was also going to be built so that most traffic would be funneled onto the lakeside road and not onto quiet North Water Street, actually talking about all those cars that wouldn't be crowded.

Not valuable surface space, this enormous tower would have seven levels of underground parking, making it the largest in the city, since that meant that only the surface of the building would be minimal, the rest of the adjacent land would become a green park space open to the public. The total estimated cost of the project was around 2 billion and as the development company worked closely with local leaders to overhaul the skyscraper further, the Chicago spire had a promising future with an estimated construction date of 2007 and a opening in 2012 in March 2007. Local residents seem to have liked the direction of this development and the project has now met with minimal opposition;

However, it is important to note that many people had mixed feelings and doubts about even the validity of carrying it out, but the developers of course went ahead and after the zoning. The committee and subsequent Chicago City Council approved the final plans for the project. Chicago Spire was fully approved and ready to begin construction. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on a sales center as floor plans began to appear in the MLS, and by the summer of 2007, the land was broken. Then construction began on the huge, bold foundation, because Chicago Spire was such a tall and thin tower, it would first need to dig deep and complex foundations with what is called a cofferdam, which is essentially a large enough walled opening, in this case underground. to allow the tower's concrete spine, which would contain elevators and stairs, to be built in June.

Shelbourne announced that 30 units of the Chicago tower had already been sold, including two-story pentos worth $40 million. Are you happy that 30 units of the building have already been sold? Very excited about that. This project is moving forward. Were you a little afraid that if it wasn't going to sell you would have to tear this whole thing down? uh no, you never, ever, you had doubts about the people working on the project, hopes were high, but this was all about to end. came to an abrupt end in mid-2008, the subprime mortgage crisis was sending America into a recession, and obviously a financial crisis is bad for a luxury condo tower.

As the completion of this foundation approached, it was announced that work would slow down on the site, however this was when things started to go wrong. In October 2008, the building's architect, Santiago Calatrava, stated that Shelbourne owed him more than $11 million in unpaid fees. Another architecture firm he hired also claimed another late payment of around 4 million, the fees were piling up. and to make matters worse the main lender to the deal was that the Anglo-Irish bank being in ruins was essentially on the brink of bankruptcy with its loans in jeopardy, of course the bank had frozen all investments which now means that Chicago Spire ran out of capital almost immediately.

Thereafter, Shelbourne temporarily suspended the project until the necessary funds could be allocated for additional construction. This was a bad sign and people who bought condos have already started asking for their deposits back. Even more worrying was the fact that there was no construction company for the royal tower. They had not yet been chosen as the site was stalled without any vertical progress according to the Wall Street Journal Shelburne was almost $70 million in debt for the Spire development as its financial situation worsened even smaller aspects of the project were falling through. through the building to which Shelbourne had been renting space for its preview center and filed a lawsuit alleging that the company was more than three hundred thousand dollars behind on rent payments in the summer of 2009 and with little recovery from the crisis global financial.

Bank of America then also filed a lawsuit seeking restitution of nearly $5 million in unpaid loans by the end of that year, however, it looked like Chicago Spire's fortunes might begin to change when Kelleher announced he would meet with the afl-cio, representative of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrialists. The organizations see that jobs, especially in the city and indeed throughout the United States, were scarce and with unemployment reaching unprecedented levels, the spire project could become a large source of multi-year jobs, so If construction moved to a fully unionized workforce then Shelbourne could secure a $170 million union loan in just a few weeks, however this deal fell through and when the Chicago business newspaper asked other local unions If they would consider investing, they all said no, we were now in early 2010 and with the site dormant, that lawsuit Because the unpaid rent on their preview center had finally been concluded and Shelbourne was evicted from the building at the end of that year, but this time another lawsuit was filed by its old friend, the Anglo-Irish bank, now it was time to settle the score in the form of a $77 million lawsuit aimed directly at the Shelborne development group.

Shelbourne eventually declared bankruptcy shortly after, as the project site remained

abandoned

for the next few years in 2013. The property came up for sale through an Irish asset management company. The sale attracted several bidders. including Atlas Apartment Holdings, which Shelbourne Development tried to partner with in a sort of way out of their bankruptcy with a $135 million loan, as if they hadn't received enough money in this 2014 deal, they would act as developers and Atlas. would manage the tower yes, they still intended for the spire to move forward. Shelbourne also agreed to a new payment plan with creditors, primarily a company called Related Midwest, however, of course, in true Shelbourne fashion, in October of that year they failed to pay Related Midwest with East Midwest related to delinquencies on the loans. payments went for his land and he filed a lawsuit to try to take possession of the deed and just a month later, the court ruled in favor of the Midwest and they took control of the property shortly after it was announced that they would not build Chicago.

The project, like its foundation, was officially abandoned in relation to the Midwest and he then set to work on his own, more feasible vision for the site; However, Garrett Kelleher's lawsuit saga did not end there, as in 2018 he filed a lawsuit. The tables came back, no, it presented a 1.2. billion dollar lawsuit against the national asset management company for citing sheer spite and continued incompetence in dealing with him on the Chicago spire project, we will see where that lawsuit goes meanwhile, in the same year, those related to The Midwest revealed what their plans were for the Old Needle sites.

There have been other concepts for the land over the years, however, this was the first with a lot of planning behind it. They unveiled a two-tower condo development, the taller featuring a luxury hotel and mixed condos topping out at around 1,100 feet with the smaller tower at 850 feet, the design is much less flashy and certainly blends in more. with the horizon with interesting rounded glass panels that shape the towers. Emphasis was placed on the actual design of the project, including elements that harken back to Chicago's architectural past, while this is a much more standard development. and nothing that will necessarily grab headlines or break records around the world, it's beautiful and probably a more realistic project to see through that, that being said, however, the concept was rejected by the vice mayor of

chicago

over concerns ranging from security to the podium height of the two towers in mid-2020, they presented a revised version of this billion-dollar plan.

Now, with mixed feedback, the developers have stated that they would like to begin construction in early 2021. However, like the original Needle project, the company has to navigate through a nation coming out of an economic recession, so we'll see if they meet that deadline at this point. It's been more than 15 years since Christopher Carly dreamed of an ultra-tall skyscraper like no other in the world, one for Chicago to continue reaching for the skies and even for a short time breaking world records would have dramatically changed the iconic city's skyline and It's really amazing how close it was, however at the same time I can't understand why a lot of people would say well all they did was dig a hole and yes to some extent that's true, I don't think the developers who ultimately They took control of the needle they set out to scam people but the disaster it became doesn't look very good, according to Kelleher, he claimed that he personally invested $195 million in the project, which leaves me absolutely speechless because At this point the spire will never be built and all the time, money and effort ofhundreds of people, all confident that they were building something so big and so real, it was all for Nada, so yeah, it's a little annoying to think about how that money could have been spent differently.

However, in their defense, I think they at least had no idea this would be the outcome afterwards. The remains of the tower can only be seen from the enormous circular. The hole in the ground after all these years is now full of water and foliage surrounding the room, the scaffolding only has a ladder leading to deep water and the hole is now a local joke in Chicago, maybe the foundation will be used in the new development, but I think that in some ways this site will always be remembered for the infamous concepts of what would have been someone who had high hopes but after a series of catastrophic events caused this tower to turn in the wrong direction to even though the needle was designed mid or late. 2000s, I have to say that their interiors and floor plans are not as good as this strange built-in curved bed base, but I don't know much about interior design, so among the many courses offered by current sponsor Skillshare, I can easily educate myself on the fundamentals of interior design.

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