After the Spire It was supposed to be the second-tallest building in the world. Instead, it’s the city’s biggest crater.



Chicago architects offer six out-of-the-box ideas for the site of the Spire that never was.

Conceived a decade ago in the same fit of exuberance that produced Aqua, Trump Tower, and other skyscrapers along the Chicago River, the Chicago Spire was to be the grandest of them all, a 2,000-foot-tall corkscrew designed by Santiago Calatrava that would boast 1,200 condos. It would have been the second-tallest building in the world, behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. But as Chicagoans know all too well, the Spire never materialized beyond a circular foundation sunk 76 feet into the no man’s land between Lake Shore Drive, North Water Street, and the south bank of the Chicago River.

Current status Photo: Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune

Burdened with more than $100 million in debt, Irish developer Garrett Kelleher finally ceded control of the property in November to local developer Related Midwest. The firm hasn’t released plans for the site, beyond saying it intends to build an “architecturally significant and thoughtful development,” according to someone familiar with the project.

What better time, then, to churn the minds of top talent? Chicago challenged five local architecture firms (SPACE Architects + Planners, VOA, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, UrbanLab, and CLUAA) and one landscape architecture firm (Hoerr Schaudt): What would you build on the Spire site?

While their visions vary, a few themes pop up, such as building down, not up, and making creative use of water. One example: an underground data storage facility that powers—no joke—a mammoth municipal hot tub.