Another look at the South Loop’s upcoming 1000M tower

New renderings help to illustrate the evolution of Helmut Jahn’s design

By AJ LaTrace Jul 19, 2017, 12:23pm CDT

A look at JAHN’s design for the upcoming skyscraper at 1000 S. Michigan Avenue.

The marketing effort for the planned 74-story residential tower at 1000 S. Michigan Avenue continues with a refreshed website, an bus ad campaign, and the unveiling of a couple of new high-res images. The new renderings, provided exclusively to Curbed by the 1000M team, reveal how the 832-foot tower, along with a handful of other tall buildings, will continue to fill out and reshape the Chicago skyline while delivering hundreds of new residences—323 to be precise—to the South Loop neighborhood. With Chicago’s JAHN tapped to design the tower and Kara Mann overseeing interior duties, the tower is certainly one of the highest profile projects of this development cycle.

The latest and most detailed look at the towers helps to illustrate the evolution of the tower’s design and its programming. While the exterior design has been changed dramatically from the boxy, modular look that was originally presented nearly two years ago, the newer curvy, shape with undulating sides and building width still speaks to the new wave of structural expressionism that has swept over Chicago in recent years. Still expected to make a striking visual impact on the city’s skyline, the modified project was approved by the city last year. Aesthetically, the tower shares similarities with the 780-foot 50 West tower that JAHN designed for Manhattan.

In terms of materials, the tower will be largely composed of glass with a greenish hue with metal horizontal spandrels flanking each floor. The tower is capped with a crown screened in metallic mesh. The latest renderings reveal that the tower’s crown will serve more than aesthetic purposes—it will also act as a large amenity roof deck area that spans the eastern building wall. In addition, upper floors will feature private in-set balconies. Owners will have the option for Kara Mann’s team to stage and decorate these large private balconies as “outdoor rooms.” Mann’s firm will also help craft the nearly 40,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenity space.

As planning stages reach their conclusion, sales are expected to begin. According to the team behind 1000M, the tower’s sales center will open this fall. And provided that sales go as expected, construction of the new tower is anticipated to begin at some point next year.

The planned 1000M faces stiff competition in the high-end market, but the capping of Grant Park with designs from Helmut Jahn and Rafael Viñoly will add some new star power to Chicago’s skyline.