The architect’s concept is breathtaking: a spiralling, 115-storey tower that would pierce the sky along Chicago’s lakefront and grab the title of the tallest building in the United States.
Off the drawing board, though, history shows that such plans often fail to live up to their record-breaking aspirations.
Over the past 20 years, dozens of high-rise proposals such as the new Fordham Spire in Chicago have been billed as the world or nation’s next tallest building. But most of the projects have ended up either scaled down or scrapped before the shovels even hit the dirt.
Chicago is home to the US’s current tallest building, the Sears Tower, and has seen more than one unsuccessful attempt to top the 110-storey structure.
Sixteen years ago, the 125-storey, Cesar Pelli-designed ”Skyneedle” was supposed to go up just blocks from the Sears Tower and snare the title by towering almost 600m over the Chicago skyline. A real-estate slump scuttled the plans.
Pelli went on to design the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which did overtake the Sears Tower as the world’s tallest buildings in 1997. They were eclipsed in 2003 by the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan, which measures 503,7m.
”Since 1950, there’s only been a handful of world’s tallest buildings and those that have been built have ruled for a long time,” said Lee Bey, a former architecture critic who is writing a book about unbuilt skyscrapers. ”These things are obviously very complicated to build and complicated to finance.”
To get high-rise projects off the ground, developers have to clear financial, regulatory and political hurdles while alleviating high-rise security concerns that surfaced after the September 11 terror attacks.
Recently, the Trump International Hotel and Tower under construction at the site of the old Chicago Sun-Times building along the Chicago River was originally slated as a record-breaker.
Developer Donald Trump had planned for the 92-storey project to have a spire that would surpass the Sears Tower’s 435m. But he later scaled down the proposal after some tenants expressed concerns about living in such a tall building after the events of September 11.
Security concerns also altered the design of New York’s Freedom Tower at Ground Zero — although it’s still supposed to overtake the Sears Tower as the country’s tallest when it’s finished in 2010, with a spire reaching to 532,8m.
Other recent proposals have been scrapped altogether.
One of those, a proposed 551,1m building in Melbourne, Australia, was expected to top Taipei 101 as the world’s tallest when it was completed. The project was spiked in 2001, however, after it failed to win government approval.
Famed architect Santiago Calatrava doesn’t think his Fordham Spire in Chicago will meet the same fate. Calatrava, known for designing the Milwaukee Art Museum addition and the Athens Olympic sports complex, contends the height of the Fordham Spire is essential to the building’s design.
His plans show a svelte, platinum building with twists akin to an enormous drill bit climbing into the clouds. The high-rise will house a hotel and up to 250 residential units that he hopes will fetch between $1-million and $2-million apiece.
”It’s very atmospheric. It’s not a building that is a severe statement in the skyline,” Calatrava said. ”We need the height; otherwise, the building almost disappears because it is so slender.”
But reaching for the sky comes at a price, and developer Christopher Carley estimates the Fordham Spire could cost about $500-million to build.
Carley, who wants to break ground in March and finish construction in four years, has not yet arranged financing for the project. Before he can start building — assuming the project wins city approval — 40% of the pricey residential units will have to be sold.
”I have already several indications that that will be definitely achievable. So, we really don’t have a plan B,” Carley said.
But some question whether the Fordham project can attract the necessary financing considering the state of Chicago’s real-estate market — one more hurdle that could keep the ”tallest building” dream from becoming a reality.
”The real issue is: Does Chicago have the number of buyers that are willing to invest in a building like this?” said Adrian Smith, who designed the new Trump building and a 160-storey tower in the United Arab Emirates that is expected to become the world’s tallest when it’s competed in 2009.
”In New York, $1 000-a-square-foot is not a lot of money,” Smith said. ”In New York, you have three times as many people vying for a place like that. I just don’t know if you have enough buyers here.” — Sapa-AP