Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) Totally Explained

Everything about Trump International Hotel And Tower Chicago totally explained

The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel under construction at 401 N. Wabash Avenue in downtown named for famed real estate developer Donald Trump. It is located in the River North District of the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The Trump International Hotel and Tower is expected to be 415 meters (1,362 feet w/Spire - w/o Spire) tall and contain 92 floors for various uses. Despite ongoing difficulties, construction is proceeding. It is located on a jog of the main branch of the Chicago River with an unobstructed view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges that cross the river. It is notable for the publicity it received in association with the first season of the The Apprentice when the winner, Bill Rancic, selected its construction as his job choice. In 2010 and 2011, it'll be surpassed by the Freedom Tower in New York City and by the Chicago Spire upon their respective completions. The building will surpass the Hancock Center for the world's highest residence from the ground. The 339-room hotel opened for business at 11:00 A.M. on January 30 2008. The building also hosts a restaurant which opened in early 2008 to favorable reviews for it cuisine, decor, location, architecture and view.

Architecture

Design

The design of the building incorporates three setbacks to give it a visual continuity with the surrounding skyline. Each of the setbacks is designed to reflect the height of a nearby building: the first matches the Wrigley Building, the second setback aligns with the Marina City Towers, and the third setback matches the height of the 330 North Wabash (formerly known as IBM Plaza). The setbacks and rounded edges of the building will combat vortex formation. Floors three through twelve will be used for lobbies, retail, and parking 3-12.

Restaurant

On the 16th floor, a restaurant named Sixteen drew immediate favorable reviews for its cuisine, decor and location upon opening as an elite entertainment venue, although some consider it more of a place to impress clients and dates than a top notch dining experience. It opened for breakfast and dinner in early February 2008 and began serving lunch on March 3 2008. Its terrace will open for outdoor dining in 2009. Sixteen, which was designed by Joe Valerio, is described architecturally as a sequence of spaces that don't reveal themselves at once, but rather in "procession." The foyer is T-shaped. The passageway to the hotel is lined with floor-to-ceiling architectural bronze wine racks in opposing red and white wine vaults. The passageway leads to views of the Wrigley Building clock tower and Tribune Tower's flying buttresses that although not comparable to the Hancock Center's Signature Room are heartstopping. Note that since the Trump Tower has both hotel condominiums (originally planned as office space) and residential condominiums it won't contest the record recently set by the Q1 Tower in Gold Coast, Australia which is 80 stories high as the tallest all-residential building. The Chicago Spire, however, is set to break the record of tallest all-residential building upon completion in 2011.

Development

History

Design

In July 2001, when Donald Trump originally announced plans for this building on the site of the former seven-story Sun-Times building, it was estimated to reach a height of, which would have made it the future world's tallest building and estimated to contain between and of space. The first announcement of the project approximated that Trump would pay $77 million for the property. Three architects were in consideration for the building design to achieve this title: Lohan Associates, Skidmore Owings & Merrill and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. Trump selected Skidmore Owings & Merrill in August 2001 and Adrian Smith headed the Skidmore team. Smith had previously designed the Jin Mao Tower and AT&T Corporate Center. Time magazine reported that meetings about building the world's tallest building in Chicago were occurring during the September 11, 2001 attacks. These claims are supported by ex-post 1999 computer renderings of the proposed skyscraper. These same stories state that after the attacks the next revision of the tower was reported to be .
The building's design by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill was first released in December, 2001. However, the first design didn't meet well with architects and the residents of Chicago. A subsequent revision in July 2002 resulted in an 86-floor version of the current established design for use as an office and residential structure. In September 2003, a revised 90-story plan was unveiled for a building including condominiums, office space, a "condominium hotel," retail stores and restaurants. In January, 2004, another revision changed floors 17 through 26 from offices into condominiums and hotel rooms. In May 2004, it was revealed that instead of topping the building with communication dishes, which as broadcast antenna don't count toward building height, the building would include ornamental spires, which according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat count toward building height and raise the height to . At one point in 2005, Trump aspired to build a slightly taller building that would surpass the Sears Tower as the nations tallest building, but Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was against the plan. Eventually, the design settled on a height of, which was the height of Two World Trade Center, the shorter of the former Twin World Trade Center Towers.

Demolition and construction

On October 16 2004, Donald Trump and Hollinger International, the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times, completed the $73 million sale of the former home of the newspaper a week after it relocated. On October 28 2004 Trump held a ceremony to begin the demolition of the former Sun-Times Building. The demolition and construction were financed by a $650 million dollar loan from Deutsche Bank and a trio of hedge fund investors who represented George Soros as one of their sources of funds.
   Construction began on March 17 2005, with the beginning of process of sinking the first caisson for the tower into the bedrock. The mat serves as the base of the building from which its spine rises. Those involved with the construction referred to the day as the "Big Pour". James McHugh Construction Co is contracted for the concrete work on this job. They sourced the concrete from the Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street distribution site of the -based Prairie Material Sales Inc, the largest privately owned ready-mix concrete company in the United States. It turns out that two distinct pieces of legislation in 2002 and 2003 by the Chicago City Council had authorized the kiosk. Although there were demands from citizens organizations and the local Alderman Burton Natarus (who had voted in favor of the legislation) to remove the kiosk, Trump only agreed to remove pricing information from the signage.
   Donald Trump has been sued by former Chicago Sun-Times publisher, F. David Radler for rescinding all "friends and family" condominium purchases including Radler's. Radler had negotiated the joint venture purchase of the property for the purpose of building the skyscraper and is noted for having testified as a government witness against Conrad Black. Radler’s daughters were also named in the lawsuit. The purchase price had been at a 10% discount and required only a 5% deposit instead of the standard 15%. Radler and family were part of a group of 40 insiders who were able to purchase property at about $500/square foot. When the market value of the property eventually rose to over $1300/square foot, Trump nullified the "Friends and family" sales. The insiders were people involved in the planning and designing of the building. In January 2007 Trump cited both a clause about "matters beyond [the] seller's reasonable control" and the desired to "have more income to handle potentially higher construction costs." In addition to the Radler suit over the validity of the "Friends and family discount" contracts that he and his daughters had entered into, a group of four owners sued over revisions in the closing terms which both place limits on the owner occupancy of condo hotel units and exclude the meeting rooms and ballrooms from the common elements that the owners have an interest in.
   At the time of the soft opening, Trump had still not come to terms with the local hotel workers' union. It is, Local 1 of UNITE HERE, the same union he uses for three and one New York City hotel. The disagreement is over the inclusion of food and beverage workers in the bargaining collective.

Other issues

On September 19, 2007, the Trump International Hotel and Tower was featured on the Discovery Channel series Build It Bigger entitled High Risk Tower.
The hotel had originally planned to do a "soft" open of three of its floors on December 3 2007 with a later grand opening to follow, but the partial opening was delayed. In January 2008, the city of Chicago granted occupancy approval for the hotel staff. The hotel, which occupies the first twenty-seven floors opened on January 30 2008. Construction on the exterior of the building had passed the fifty-third floor. The opening included four floors of guest rooms. The grand opening of the entire hotel and its full offering of amenities was scheduled for March 17 2008,

Construction

Bill Rancic, The Apprentice season one winner, was originally hired to manage the project for a $250,000 salary as a result of his victory on the show on April 15 2004. Rancic's title was President of the Trump International Hotel & Tower, Rancic's contract was renewed after his first year, but in September 2005 during his second year, it appeared that Trump and Rancic wouldn't renew their employment contract. Donald Trump, Jr., who had been involved in the building since its earliest stages in 1999, was overseeing the construction with weekly visits in 2005, while Rancic worked on sales and marketing. In December 2005, Rancic made it clear that he wanted to continue working for Trump, and by April 2006 his contract was renewed for a third year. In 2006, Donald Trump's children began to shine as top executives in the Trump Organization. By January 2007 all three adult Trump children (Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump) were executives in the acquisitions and development division of the company. Bovis Lend Lease, noted for work on Disneyland Paris, Petronas Towers and the Time Warner Center, is the construction company. James McHugh Construction Co, the concrete subcontractor is implementing a comprehensive formwork for the construction of the building. The building will be the tallest formwork structure in the world, A new chemical process that leverages more fluid liquid concrete facilitates pumping concrete up several hundred feet to the elevating construction site. The concrete spine uses five (narrowing to two as the building rises) I-beam-shaped walls and exterior columns. Each floor is separated by a concrete slab, and stainless steel, glass and aluminum panels are attached to each floor. The extensive use of concrete makes the building more fireproof. Of the $600 million construction budget, $130 million is earmarked for the James McHugh Construction Co who is handling the concrete-only portion of the job. A pair of business decisions by the Sun-Times saved a lot of construction time and money. During site preparation, the company avoided large cleanup costs because in the 1970s the newspaper switched from petroleum-based to soy-based ink which reduced ground pollution from the printing plant. Also, the original 1950's sea wall was built to bomb shelter thickness to withstand a Cold War attack and didn't have to be broken down and rebuilt. Image:TrumpTowerChicago as of 21APR05.jpg|April 21, 2005 Image:IMG 0392.JPG|February 7, 2006 Image:20060819 Trump Chicago.JPG|August 19, 2006 Image:20061122 Wabash Ave @ Chicago Rive View of Trump Chicago.JPG|November 22, 2006 Image:TrumpTowerChicago04_05_08.jpg|April 05 2008 Image:20080423 Trump International from Wabash.JPG|April 23 2008 Further Information

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