Sunday, March 30, 2008

Angel Reprieved as Soft Market Fells First Giant


The increasingly unsettled real estate market has claimed its first Chicago megaproject. The Chicago Sun-Time's David Roeder is reporting today that a planned 67-story high skyscraper, Canyon Ranch Chicago, has been canceled. The rounded tower, designed by Destefano+Partners, was to have risen on the current site of Episcopal Center, a mid-rise Miesian structure at 65 E. Huron, behind the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago's St. James Cathedral on Wabash. A tightening of lending restrictions and a paucity of buyers were the reasons cited for deep-sixing Canyon.

Crain's Chicago Business reported earlier this month that the developer, New York's Related Companies, was having trouble getting Canyon and another major project - Streeterville's Peshtigo - off the ground, and was contemplating having the developments taken over by Magellan Group LLC, the city's largest homebuilder and the force behind Lakeshore East. Canyon Ranch's units were priced at the top-of-market $1,000 a square-foot range. Could its failure mean the pool of millionaires to which a glut of other similar proposed Chicago projects are being marketing has finally begun to run dry?

The Episcopal Diocese will continue to consider other uses for their prime property, but for at least one more summer, the Angel of Peace sculpture will continue to stand watch over one of the last remaining open spaces in River North.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh darn.

And just when I was looking forward to bumping into another 10-story parking garage podium.

Yea!

The developer should put that monstrous silvery thing in Houston, where it belongs. I hear they like crazy down there.