Saturday 5 March 2005
Chicago Sun Times Building update
The Mayor of Chicago is a powerful man. In fact King of Chicago would be a more realistic moniker. He normally gets what he wants. Now, you would have thought that Donald Trump is also used to getting what he wants. But in discussions about the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago it looks like the Mayor is going to win. The local papers have had a lot of fun with this as two of the greatest mouths, sorry minds grapple with each other over whether to put a spire on top of the proposed structure.
But the Mayor wants 'his skyline' to have a spire on it and that is that. If the latest design for Trump tower is topped by a pointy spike, it could make the building the second tallest in the city and in America, not to mention the seventh tallest in the world.
"He does like spires," Trump remarked of Richard M Daley (his father was also Mayor) after they met in City Hall last month over a glass of Merlot.
City bureaucrats will have to approve the new plans. If they do, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago would become the second tallest building in the city, well above the 1,136-foot Aon Center (where I work) and the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center, but still 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building.
It would make Trump's skyscraper 90 feet taller than the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, which is, after the Sears, the countries runner-up.
Though Trump's Chicago tower will clearly secure a place in the global pantheon of tall buildings, it likely will slip before long. The planned Freedom Tower at ground zero in lower Manhattan is supposed to rise to 1,776 feet, a height that would symbolically refer to the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The world's tallest building is the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan, but Chicago based architects Skidmore, Owings & Merril last year announced construction had begun on a multi-use 'city in a city' skyscraper in Dubai that will soar to more than 2,000 feet. (more) ¶ 13:02
The Mayor of Chicago is a powerful man. In fact King of Chicago would be a more realistic moniker. He normally gets what he wants. Now, you would have thought that Donald Trump is also used to getting what he wants. But in discussions about the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago it looks like the Mayor is going to win. The local papers have had a lot of fun with this as two of the greatest mouths, sorry minds grapple with each other over whether to put a spire on top of the proposed structure.
But the Mayor wants 'his skyline' to have a spire on it and that is that. If the latest design for Trump tower is topped by a pointy spike, it could make the building the second tallest in the city and in America, not to mention the seventh tallest in the world.
"He does like spires," Trump remarked of Richard M Daley (his father was also Mayor) after they met in City Hall last month over a glass of Merlot.
City bureaucrats will have to approve the new plans. If they do, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago would become the second tallest building in the city, well above the 1,136-foot Aon Center (where I work) and the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center, but still 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building.
It would make Trump's skyscraper 90 feet taller than the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, which is, after the Sears, the countries runner-up.
Though Trump's Chicago tower will clearly secure a place in the global pantheon of tall buildings, it likely will slip before long. The planned Freedom Tower at ground zero in lower Manhattan is supposed to rise to 1,776 feet, a height that would symbolically refer to the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The world's tallest building is the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan, but Chicago based architects Skidmore, Owings & Merril last year announced construction had begun on a multi-use 'city in a city' skyscraper in Dubai that will soar to more than 2,000 feet. (more) ¶ 13:02
