The South Loop's Museum Park Lofts and Museum Park Tower II are uniquely Chicago, from the bits of history encountered during excavation to their reflection of Daniel Burnham's historic city plan.

The Museum Park Lofts, a $34 million, 149-unit, modern loft-style structure, broke ground in June 2002 and is slated for completion in March. The $60 million, 21-story Museum Park Tower II broke ground in November 2001 and began turning over units for occupancy in May.

The Museum Park development encompasses 26 acres on the lakefront, just west of the Field Museum and Soldier Field. Plans call for the development to encompass seven buildings, one of which, Museum Park tower I, is finished.

Fitting Into the City

"The Museum Park Tower II is what we in our firm call a Chicago-style building," said Jeff Renterghem, project manager overseeing both projects for Chicago-based architect Pappageorge Haymes Ltd. "It plays off the Museum Campus and has architectural details that are part of the local vernacular."

He said some of those details include the expansive windows of the structure.
"When they were building the early Chicago high-rise buildings, they found ways to increase the lintel size and the area of the windows," he added. Pier lintels and a colonnade effect give texture, depth and shadow to the building's exterior, fitting into the look of existing structures and avoiding a flat, modern architectural character.
Budget issues arose early in the Tower project.

"Before we could break ground or get contracts signed, we had to trim $2 million off the budget," said Diane Redszus, project manager on the Tower for Wheeling, Ill.-based general contractor Kenny Construction Co.

Value engineering and a review of materials for less expensive options, particularly in HVAC systems, enabled Kenny to trim in multiple areas.

One of the items that helped meet cost was a glass-fiber-reinforced concrete, which Redszus described as, "a sort of hollow precast that is sprayed onto a metal framework.

"This was a material that was new to us," she added. "We used it not just because of cost, but also because there is a design issue with the weight of precast. The weight wouldn't allow us to have the structural steel span we needed for the banquet room and community room."

Other budget trims came from simplifying some of the concrete designs and opting for decorative masonry on the exterior, rather than concrete.

Overcoming Site Issues

The Tower project faced considerable site issues from previous land uses, soil composition, neighboring structures and building on landfill beside Lake Michigan.
"We ran into Chicago Fire landfill [the Great Chicago Fire of 1871], organic peats and some other really nasty stuff," Redszus said. "Along the lakefront there was cribbing, stones with wood piles driven in closely, filled in with riprap [boulders] with railroad ties on top."

"Before the fire, this site was Lake Michigan," Renterghem said.
He added that excavation also turned up antique bits of Chicago daily life, such as bottles and horseshoes.

Running across the antiques was interesting, but the cribbing and riprap was another matter.

"We had 135 caissons supporting the building that were 75 to 70 ft. deep," Redszus said. "It was a challenge trying to drill these caissons through tightly packed stone between timbers."

She said that once crews hit the difficult material, studies were conducted to determine whether going with piles or micro-piles would be the best option in terms of cost and schedule impact.

"It was less expensive and better time-wise to just suck it up and drill the caissons as originally planned," she said.

High water levels were also a concern on the Tower site.

Renterghem described constructing the building's underground parking areas as "building swimming pools," with the intent of keeping water out. He added that pumps will run constantly to keep the basement levels dry.

All work on the Tower was complicated because crews had access from only one side of the site. There was only about 2 ft. of access space between the new structure and the east property line, on the other side of which was a Metra commuter rail line and bus-way. Installation of precast had to be coordinated with bus and train schedules.
Although the Museum Park Lofts project did not encounter the Tower's water problems, there were site problems.

"The building is on 70-ft.-deep caissons and grade beams," said Chris Murray, project manager for Kenny Construction.

Murray said that old foundations from previous uses of the site were the biggest issue in excavation, including old stepped footings and I-beams encased in concrete.
But the biggest concern on the tight Lofts site was access.

"It is developed on three sides of this building and there is no staging area, so it is really a logistical puzzle," Murray said. "We had everything planned and scheduled for just-in-time delivery. Everything comes straight in from the street to where it is needed."

He added that any waste generated in unpacking various materials has to come out of the structure and off the site immediately.

Improving an Old Idea

The Lofts building is designed to reflect the rehabbed, industrial loft-style living spaces that draw their charm from high ceilings and exposed duct and brickwork.
"These are soft lofts," said Joe Villanti, project architect with Pappageorge Haymes Ltd. "The owner wanted us to reflect the loft look and feel, so we have 10-ft. ceilings and exposed duct work."

Renterghem said what is called a loft today "is only the spirit of what they were. The lofts have all the amenities of a modern residential building, without the heating, cooling, plumbing and security hassles that plagued early loft rehabs.
A duplex level on top of the building and a set-back at the fourth-floor level presented design and structural challenges.

"We added to two floors during the design phase," Villanti said. "The challenge was how to do that without taking up more floor-area ratio than we had on the site."
The solution was to set the duplex levels back from the edge of the building.

Villanti said transfer beams were used, ringing the first row of interior columns in the structure. The transfer beams are connected to the exterior of building, where the load is carried down to a set-back of about a foot below the fourth floor.

"For as simple as that set-back looks, it presented some interesting challenges for the structural engineers," he said. "It took a beam 3 ft. wide by 3 ft. tall to make that work and it took about three weeks to build that transfer beam. There is an amazing amount of rebar in that thing."

Andy Lane, project manager on the Lofts building for Chicago-based Fisher + Partners Structural Engineers, said the whole beam is carrying the load of the building.
"The load of the buildings comes down on the outside of the beam, which wants to twist to the outside," he added.

On the exterior the building retains some of the "old loft" look.

"We tried to give it the Second City industrial look," Villanti said.

That included creating a screen of steel beams to wrap the bottom three floors of the building, which will eventually be covered by a layer of vines similar to those at Wrigley Field.

Building on Burnham's Plan

The entire Museum Park development was conceived with an eye to fitting into the greater scheme of Chicago's cityscape.

Renterghem said that when Burnham drew up his great plan for Chicago, he never envisioned the South Side being built up. He assumed that what is now Museum Park would always be a busy rail hub.

"This is our interpretation of how he would have filled it in," Renterghem said of the Museum Park projects. "We like to joke that we are going to be part of the post cards now."