The property at 400 Lake Shore Drive is the last vacant lot on the Michigan shore near the mouth of the Chicago River. Moreover, it is located in the most prominent place - right at the point where the river flows into the lake. In the mid-2000s, it was planned to build a Chicago Spire skyscraper with a height of more than 600 m, designed by Santiago Calatrava. However, the crisis of 2008 prevented this idea, from which there was a huge foundation pit, for which one or another new function was periodically offered. The site is now owned by Related Midwest, a subsidiary of Related Companies, and designed by SOM and its consultant design partner David Childs (who has been with the architecture firm since 1971, including the two towers of New York WTC, first and seventh).
400 Lake Shore Drive consists of skyscrapers with heights of 335 m and 260 m, respectively. In the southern, higher tower, 300 apartments for sale and 175 hotel rooms are planned, in the northern one - 550 apartments for rent. The podium that unites them will house the infrastructure for hotel guests and residents. Skyscrapers are separated by a relatively large distance so as not to obstruct the views from the windows - their own and surrounding buildings, as well as from other parts of the city.
The architecture of 400 Lake Shore Drive is determined by the traditions of the Chicago school of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries: the facades will be decorated with terracotta profiles and plates with metal details, and window openings will remind of the three-part (more precisely, five-part) "Chicago window" (its examples on the plane and in the form bay window
can be viewed here). The podium will be lined with stone to drown out the noise from the busy Lake Shore Drive. It is planned to create on the site almost two hectares of green public space, which will connect parks and promenade along the banks of the river and lake. Construction should take 4.5 years, but no start date has been set yet.
