Tishman Speyer has long been on the hunt for a Loop tenant to go into a new tower planned for a vacant parcel, and can now show potential suitors a new look for the skyscraper.
The city approved a revised design for the New York real estate firm’s project at 130 North Franklin Street in the Loop, Urbanize Chicago reported. The new development will rise on an empty lot previously home to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Building.
Tishman first proposed a 730-foot-tall office tower in 2015. After failing to secure an anchor tenant, however, the project’s Planned Development designation was set to expire in 2021. Tishman was granted a one-year extension after the company cited the pandemic as well as its shortcomings before the health crisis in snagging a tenant in order to land construction financing for the building.
Now, Krueck Sexton Partners, the design partner for the project, has a simplified concept for the building, giving Tishman more time. The newest version, which zoning documents show was approved, adds a trapezoid-shaped portion with curved terraces.
Plans also call for a hanging garden and amenity space on the seventh floor and a garden on the 20th. In addition, the design consolidated a set of pedestrian plazas into a single one at the southern edge of the site. The office lobby and elevator bank will be located along the northern side to align with the largest portion of the tower. The new design also includes larger sidewalks than previous iterations to create a more-open public space.
With space for new office towers rare in the Loop, developers have targeted the West Loop area for such projects.
Development firm John Buck Co. this summer shifted its plans for a West Loop office project to include two towers instead of a single skyscraper at 655 West Madison Street. The move added flexibility to the project by giving John Buck the option to start construction on a first tower with less space pre-leased than would be necessary to have accounted for in order to start building 1.5-million-square-foot single tower.
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— Victoria Pruitt