All eyes are on the skies, where one Chicago apartment tower after another takes shape as the region's high foreclosure rate and the inability of homebuyers to secure financing have boosted the appeal of renting. Image Courtesy of Lend Lease No fewer than 20 major apartment projects , including 1225 Old Town, are under development, design or construction in Chicago. Net rents for Class A apartment units in downtown Chicago spiked 10% this past year, sufficient to spark development activity downtown and in neighborhoods due north, according to Appraisal Research Counselors, a Chicago-based consulting firm.Strong market fundamentals prompted Chicago-based Magellan
The $17.4-million, interdenominational Horizon Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, showcases the interplay of structural steel for its frame, wood timber for its ceilings, stone for its walls and light-gauge metal for non-wooden trusses and interior walls.
As the only stand-alone hospital in West Michigan devoted exclusively to pediatric care, the $286-million, 11-story Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids deftly weaves a child-friendly environment with environmentally friendly systems.
An 850,000-sq-ft LEED-Platinum corporate headquarters, a center for homeless youth and a cable-stayed bridge spanning the Missouri River are among the projects a panel of industry professionals have awarded top honors in ENRMidwest's Best Projects 2011 competition, an annual program recognizing outstanding design and construction in a variety of categories.
Upstaging Adler & Sullivan's rock-solid Auditorium Building in downtown Chicago is a glassy new landmark for Roosevelt University. The school's “vertical campus,” set to open next March, has faced difficult obstacles—tight laydown and delivery zones, delicate underground work, tough hoisting logistics, to name a few—but the building team is handily making the grade on the $118-million project. The first challenge to overcome had to do with fire safety. In 2004 the city adopted a new code requiring pre-1975 high-rises to be equipped with automatic sprinklers. That meant Roosevelt University would have to retrofit its 19-story Herman Crown Center, a residence
Robert Mortimer and Michael Gould have been named senior vice presidents with Chicago-based contractor James McHugh Construction Company. Randy Bullard, Peter Campagnolo, Brian Fish and John Kelly were named vice presidents with the firm. John Tuisl has been named vice president of safety and risk management with Northbrook, Ill.-based contractor Kenny Construction Co., while Tom Lubas Jr. has been named assistant risk manager for the firm. Kenny recently combined its safety and risk management departments. Kenny is the only construction company to have been awarded the National Safety Council's Green Cross for Safety. Kurt Jaeger has been appointed vice president
In the warm, waning days of summer, mechanical crews are replenishing their ranks in a push to bring the $1-billion Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago on line by late fall. “We peaked with 80 workers or so, then got really skinny for awhile,” says Scott Tranter, group vice president with The Hill Group, the project's Franklin Park, Ill.-based mechanical contractor. “Today, we're back up to about 25.”The task at hand is almost a project unto itself, one of several Hill has tackled as the 23-story structure has taken shape on the campus of Northwestern Medical Center,
Rather than wait and see whether modest gains in construction activity this summer heralded a return to economic stability, many builders in the Midwest and elsewhere are heading for the exits. Related Links: Although national construction employment inched to a 15-month high in July and remained virtually unchanged in August, “unemployed workers are leaving the industry at seven times the rate they are finding jobs in it,” says Ken Simonson, chief economist with the Arlington, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America.“We need a recovery to market to the prospective work force,” says Anirban Basu, chief economist with Arlington, Va.-based Associated
Hollywood producers love a good sequel. But what about road engineers? While a successful movie's return squeezes extra profit out of a film franchise, a valuable highway follow-up cashes in on the lessons learned from previous work, yielding infrastructure that holds up over time. On the other hand, the engineering equivalent of a bad movie is a bloated boondoggle of a road that cracks under pressure. Related Links: From ENR's Archives: Tight Focus, New Mix Puts Wacker Drive Back in the Loop Official 'Revive Wacker Drive' Site Video: Rebuilding Chicago's Wacker Drive In the case of Chicago's Wacker Drive, an
SCHMALZ The LiRo Group, New York, hired Richard Schmalz as vice president. He will head the firm's engineering division and will direct all design engineering activities, including civil, structural, transportation, traffic engineering and landscape architecture projects.WINCKOAmy K. Wincko, first vice president of construction operations for Tishman Construction Corp., an AECOM company, was awarded the Corporate Professional Achievement Award at the Professional Women in Construction's Salute to Women of Achievement luncheon in recognition of her management role on major projects. These include 1 WTC, the World Trade Center Hub and 4 WTC. Wincko has been with Tishman since 2001.The McGraw-Hill Cos.,
RSS
