Rafael Viñoly’s skyline-altering South Loop tower is officially under construction

While it may not look overtly significant to a typical passerby, the heavy machinery currently humming away at the corner of Roosevelt and Indiana in Chicago’s South Loop marks the official start of construction on One Grant Park. Designed by notable Uruguay-born architect Rafael Viñoly for Florida-based developer Crescent Heights, the 792-unit rental tower began site preparations late last year. Utilizing a bundle-tube design similar to Chicago’s Willis (Sears) Tower, the skyscraper is poised to bookend the south end of Grant Park with some much-needed height and provide some visual balance to Chicago’s skyline.

It was long understood that the tower would easily exceed 800 feet, but it seems that Viñoly’s creation may rise even higher than previously thought. According to a tip posted on the development watching forums at Skyscraperpage.com, the project’s often quoted height of 76 stories seems to just apply to the tower’s highest occupied floor.

With four additional mechanical floors (plus the tower’s decorative crown), the online source suggests the structural pinnacle could reach as high 892 feet. If accurate, One Grant Park will be even harder to ignore as it takes a prominent place on Chicago’s already iconic architectural stage in 2019. A future phase of the project calls for a second, even taller twin tower to the immediate west.

• Site prep underway for Rafael Viñoly’s 76-story South Loop tower [Curbed Chicago]
• Rafael Viñoly’s 76-story South Loop tower lands construction permit [Curbed Chicago]
• South Loop archives [Curbed Chicago]