One of Chicago’s two tower cranes working on renovation projects has fulfilled its duty to the city and has been dismantled. At the Thompson Center in The Loop, Clark Construction has completed the heavy lifting for Google’s transformation of their new Chicago headquarters. Shedd Aquarium now has Chicago’s lone crane not working on new construction.
The Thompson Center tower crane has accomplished what it set out to do.
The long climb up to begin the dismantling process. Photo by Daniel Schell
You served your city well, Red Googlecrane. Photo by Daniel Schell
Removing the tower crane means the vast majority of work on the Thompson Center’s exterior is complete. Google received an $85 million permit back in December to work on the building’s interiors, and progress on that will no doubt ramp up with the full enclosure of the new glass skin. Google plans to move employees into the refurbished offices this year. They currently occupy 1000 West Fulton, with Google Cloud staff located at 210 North Carpenter Street.
Photo by Daniel Schell
Counterweights stacked on Randolph Street Saturday morning. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Those cables took some time. Photo by Daniel Schell
Separation. Photo by Daniel Schell
The descent begins. Photo by Daniel Schell
The crane was first scheduled to come down the weekend of February 6-8, but it was decided to delay the process by a week rather than compete with the Super Bowl for viewers. Central Contractors Service showed up on site Friday and began setting up. By noon on Saturday, they had removed the counterweights and other pieces of the crane, before detaching the boom and lowering it to the ground. A photo shared on X late Saturday showed the cab still atop the tower, with no other parts attached. They completed disassembly on Sunday.
Lowering the boom. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
The boom was set down inside the construction site, rather than out on the street. Photo by Daniel Schell
…It will be broken down further before it’s trucked away. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
In other February tower crane news, the rig at the Bally’s Casino hotel tower was jumped for the second time this past weekend. The second crane at the AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion in Hyde Park is likely to come down this coming weekend, but we’ll make up for that with the erection of 1010 South Wells, likely to go up the first weekend in March. And on Friday the 13th, a pending permit for a tower crane at 214 north Morgan hit the Chicago Data Portal. With 566 West Van Buren on February 2, it’s the second pending tower crane permit added to the portal this month. Neither of those two developments have been issued their first permits to get construction started.
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Was hoping for something more like Pacific Design Center glass on this building to make it a refreshing and lively standout building in the Loop. When you walk by it today it is probably going to be more energy efficient but sits a bit heavily inside the rather grim glass facade.