The six-story loft office building at 168 North Clinton Street in the West Loop was permitted for demolition on January 22. It has taken some time to get preliminary work done inside the building in preparation for the razing, but that’s been accomplished now, and demo work is expected to begin in earnest within the next two week.
During the last week of April, demolition contractor Atlas Industries walked us through the building and showed us the prep work that had been done and the salvaging that they’ll do during the demo process. There are, of course, literal tons of bricks that will be palletized and reused, but also lots of timber, still in fantastic shape, that will be salvaged for repurposing. There are no plans in place as yet to redevelop the site.
Elevator doors at the entrance to the south half of the building. Photo by Daniel Schell
First floor space. All that wood will be saved for reuse. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
the interior stairway is entirely brick, with some very old wood railings. Photo by Daniel Schell
Corner office with north and east views. . Photo by Daniel Schell
Top landing and the ladder to the roof. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Solid wood pillar on the sixth floor. Photo by Daniel Schell
More pillars, more beams. Photo by Daniel Schell
This was a full kitchen on the sixth floor. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Another look at the sixth floor landing and ladder to the roof. Photo by Daniel Schell
A much larger wood column in the basement. Photo by Daniel Schell
This is the north side of the first floor, the former home of the USPS Haymarket Station. Photo by Daniel Schell
Ready for work. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Atlas Industries did the demo work a few blocks away at the Cassidy Tire building in 2022, where they carefully removed another treasure trove of timber. You can see that in this photo gallery from Building Up Chicago. Notice the stacks of pallets they had ready for bricks, too.
Atlas Industries has one piece of equipment already on site and ready to work. Once demolition begins, portions of the parking lots on either side of the building will be closed. Atlas estimates the demolition will take three months, and they expect to salvage about 150,000(!) bricks.
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I am surprised it will only take 3 months to gut and demo the building. With them looking to salvage the timber and bricks I would have thought longer.
The interior is as gutted as it’s gonna get. The three-month estimate is for tearing down the building.
Thanks for the great photos Daniel.
🤙🏻
Great photos! So happy to know that so much of this will be repurposed.
Still sad a classic building like this is being demolished instead of converted. Hopefully to be replaced with a ton of housing.
If there are no plans to build something new, why is this perfectly usable building being torn down? We absolutely need a land value tax ASAP that wouldn’t allow for this to turn into a long-vacant lot that depresses the surrounding neighborhood blocks.
There’s a small parking lot on either side of the building, so by knocking this building down there will be a much larger cleared parcel. I don’t necessarily like that they’re tearing this building down, but I can see that there’s a logic to it for future development.
The north facing windows also severely limit what can be built on that north site, which otherwise would be perfectly sized for a narrow tower that used the unused zoning capacity of this structure for maximizing height.
The lot to the south is owned by the building at Randolph/Clinton & is planned to be an addition to that office building. In this day & era though, I wonder if they would make a play for these parcels in order to build a residential structure on the upper floors, with office & amenity spaces on a 5 story base wrapping a modest parking garage, with a shared office & residential amenity deck on the 6th floor.
My guess is that it will be marketed with that surface parking lot next door to allow for something larger; both are small lots for modern buildings
Bummer that in a city of vacant lots this is being razed without a plan for replacement
This is wonton destruction. I guess it’s below the radar of the current administration.