The first handful of glass curtain wall panels have been installed on the hotel tower for Bally’s Casino in River West. The panels were put in place last week on the east façade of the tower, along the Chicago River.
It is not clear yet if this is the beginning of many more to soon follow, or if they are test panels that will be removed. Social media posts from Friday, including a shot of the glass from inside, have since been taken down.
As for upward progress on the 34-story, 500-room hotel, crews are working now on pouring the 15th floor. And when I say “now” I can’t say with any certainty what size crew is working on any particular day in the brutal cold, but the construction site was active Monday. Hardy lot, those folks.
Bally’s has a goal of opening the hotel and casino by the end of this year. However, the Sun-Times reported Thursday that a bill introduced would extend their use of the temporary facility at Medinah Temple into fall 2027. But per the Sun-Times article, which says construction is 13.8 percent complete, “the Bally’s team assured City Council members on Thursday the mega-casino that Chicago mayors have coveted for decades is ‘on track to speed through completion,’ and they have no intention of needing or using the entire one-year extension.”
Photos of the new glass and progress on the hotel from several angles, taken in Monday’s sunlight, January 26:
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
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First time seeing the height of this tower. Glad to see it is gonna be 150m+. That makes ot we have two skyscrapers under construction yay!
Sorry to get your hopes up, but I mis-typed. It is 500 *rooms*, about 450 feet tall.
That’s quite the beefy core. Is this how high-rise hotels typically look? Feels like quite a chunk of wasted central space to maintain the slender profile.
Hotel floors typically have rooms for housekeeping along with the typical spaces for elevators, stairs, electrical and other services. The housekeeping spaces would also include its own elevator, so the core would be larger than a typical core in a residential high rise.
Do the nomrally keep a big chunk of the wall blank, though? I got one next door, but there are definitely hotel rooms flanking both halves of the building.
That’s 1/3 of the wall face kinda wasted. Even Vegas hotels maintain most of the face for rooms.
Are they really only up to 15? I live across the river from the project in a high rise and it feels like it’s almost eye level with us up on the 30th floor.
The elevator core is a couple stories higher, but they’re pouring concrete for the 15th floor, yes.
If there was a polymarket on “will Bally open up by the end of the year in Chicago ” I would think NO would be winning
I hope they’ll proceed with this glass panels, that would be a nice change in sand color everything in the area.
For anyone interested, they are installing more glass panels right now
I’m interested. Thanks Alex. Good to hear it’s ongoing.