Reactions to West Loop Office Tower

To outsiders, plans for a new 22-story office building at the corner of Adams and Des Plaines looks rather innocuous, but nearby condo owners see it through different eyes. At a community meeting on Tuesday, neighbors expressed concern that the new building would reflect light into their homes; they fretted that it would block their skyline views; and they asked the architects to go back and make the tower less ugly. The most interesting development: An idea was floated that landowner Old St. Pat's Church and the Chicago Park District should engage in a land swap, so that the tower can be built across the street, on the current site of Heritage Green Park. That seems like an unlikely proposition. [Chicago Architecture Blog]