Chicago Post Office Sold

[dtowncitylover]

Eishenhower, 30 minutes Wolf to the Old Post Office.

[1KielsonDrive]

3WC, defensive are we? Seeing as how you're claiming expertise about 'air rights', present a technical lecture on what 'air rights' are. We might be entertained. Maybe even enlightened. As far as my comments; when preparing them in the future, I'll run them by you for editing and clearance. PS: your conceit that I was addressing you was totally misplaced.

[crawford]

A building of this mass and construction can easily piggy-back a tower of up to 50 floors without a problem. This is what will ultimately be done with it. The lower floors a combination of hotel, apartments or condos, retail on the first couple of floors, and then a highrise with open floor plates ready to use for whatever.

We are talking about air rights, not structural engineering. You could buid a 1,000 floor tower if you wanted. What's your point?

Air rights are obviously only available on sites underbuilt to exisiting zoning. If you want air rights, you need to demolish the building.

I guarantee this site is waaaaaay overbuilt to existing zoning.

And, besides ignoring zoning, your fantasy scenario ignores the fact that Chicago is one of the most overbuilt markets in the nation. There won't be anything happening of any magnitude for a couple of years at least, and this site was pretty much worthless even at the height of the real estate boom.

[crawford]

Crawford and Kielson: You should understand what air rights are before commenting.

Please give us the definition of air rights, oh wise one.

I am hoping it will include something alluding to unused floor area ratio determined by the city code zoning envelope; of which this post office site has none, zero, nada.

And, obviously, all real estate has air rights.

LOL, sure. A typical home in Sterling Heights has air rights to build a 40-floor condo, right? Just throw it up in your back yard!

Please tell me you aren't a zoning attorney.

[PQZ]

1. 3WC is correct. All property has air rights subject local zoning laws. A house in Sterling heights has air rights. You can certainly maximize what ever rights have not been used if the home is a single storey home. In the case of the post office, it is highly likely that there exists the rights for many more floors than have been constructed.

2. Any weenie who mopes and moans about the Hudson's building being gone needs to look closely at this example.

The Hudson's building was 2.2 million square feet, nearly the same size as the Post Office. In great shape, with a willing seller in a City with a very hot real estate market and a city government willing to trhow every incentiove possible at the building, the project has not worked for ten years.

Assume the City of Detroit had spent $20 million mothballing the Hudsons for 10 years and still didn't have a developer. What would you be willing to trade for that? Lets look at what the City accomplished with $20 million in the last ten years.

Would you give up:
* Kales and the Woodward, Washington and Broadway streetscapes? They totaled about $20 million in DDA investment.
* Campus Martius and the loan to the Dime Building?
* The Book Cadillac?
* The Facade Improvement Program [[so no Park Bar, no Cliff Bells and so forth) and Merchant's Row?

Which one of these would you give up for a still vacant Hudson's Building?

[Lorax]

We are talking about air rights, not structural engineering. You could buid a 1,000 floor tower if you wanted. What's your point?

Air rights are obviously only available on sites underbuilt to exisiting zoning. If you want air rights, you need to demolish the building.

I guarantee this site is waaaaaay overbuilt to existing zoning.

And, besides ignoring zoning, your fantasy scenario ignores the fact that Chicago is one of the most overbuilt markets in the nation. There won't be anything happening of any magnitude for a couple of years at least, and this site was pretty much worthless even at the height of the real estate boom.

What's with the 3rd degree? Where in my statement does it discuss air rights? Others may talk of air rights, I'm not.

Get off your horse, Sparky.

[1KielsonDrive]

So and so is correct and so and so is wrong. That's all anyone gives a s@*t about. "It's a beautiful day". "What are you some kind of whacko, it's not a beautiful day". "Are you crazy?" "Go jump in the lake". "No, you go screw yourself". It's funny how all of these threads start out and end up the same way. Kind of like that skit from Saturday Night Live where the characters always end calling each other names. I laugh and make a joke of it because most of the time when I'm accused, I don't know what they're talking about and I wasn't even addressing the person accusing me of whatever.

[3WC]

PQZ: Thanks for your continuing insight and for sharing your knowledge.

Crawford, you asked me, "oh wise one," to explain air rights to you. OK, oh ignorant one, I shall. Pay attention.

Air rights are rights to develop space above the surface of the earth, including above existing structures. All owners of real estate have air rights above the surface of their land, to the heavens [[and also the right to exploit their property to the center of the earth.)

Real estate in this country is subject to a myriad of laws, rules and regulations; that includes air rights. One of those laws [[ordinances) is a zoning code if the land is located in an area that has such a code. Zoning codes also govern the use of air rights, obviously.

Generally, not only as a legal, but as a practical matter, air rights are limited to the owner's ability to legally exploit them.

You stated above that an owner can legally build a 1000 floor tower using his air rights. Wrong again. The government has the right, by law, to set forth the rules and regulations governing air rights in conneection with air travel. That's the FAA's job. If that were not the case, an airplane would be tresspassing on the property of others as soon as it proceeded beyond the airport boundaries.

Am I a zoning lawyer? No. I have been involved in many zoning disputes both as a lawyer and a developer. When I was, one or more of my partners, experts on the subject, would handle zoning matters. I can tell from your comments, you're not one either. And, I have been involved in two air rights deals; one, building a bridge across a public right-of-way connecting two buildings, and the other, constructing a major structure over an existing building. How many have you done?

The problem on this forum is that guys like you, Crawford, and some others, who are ignorant about so many topics, or at best have a superficial knowledge of them [[such as on this thread,) post as if they know what they are talking about. They provide some humor, but that's about it.

[[Waiting for a couple of snide, know-nothing responses. Don't let me down.)

[PQZ]

Assume the City of Detroit had spent $20 million mothballing the Hudsons for 10 years and still didn't have a developer. What would you be willing to trade for that? Lets look at what the City accomplished with $20 million in the last ten years.

Would you give up:
* Kales and the Woodward, Washington and Broadway streetscapes? They totaled about $20 million in DDA investment.
* Campus Martius and the loan to the Dime Building?
* The Book Cadillac?
* The Facade Improvement Program [[so no Park Bar, no Cliff Bells and so forth) and Merchant's Row?

Which one of these would you give up for a still vacant Hudson's Building?

Still waiting for the armchair planners to play SimCity......

Anyone willing to step up to the mic and say why they would rather have a vacant Hudson's Building over the options listed above?

[1KielsonDrive]

3WC, here's my snide comment : Speaking for myself, I wasn't even addressing you. I made a comment and you got all defensive and preachy. I don't need a lesson on 'air rights' from anyone, particularly someone who talks down. I'd be glad to ignore you but you addressed me as if I'd addressed you. I didn't. Anyway, I have plenty of architectural, engineering and legal resources should I feel the need for explanations of any matters addressed here. I don't accept opinions pushed on me as facts. Thanks for your opinions.

[1KielsonDrive]

PQZ, would I give up any of the above? Did you ever, or do you now, have the power or authority to offer those choices? Are you saying you know that those were the choices offered at the time of the Hudson's demolition? Were you inside on the decisions made on those projects? Did you foresee that those projects would come about only if Hudson's disappeared? Of course, you did start your post with 'assume'. So these are your assumptions? I don't accept your choices or assumptions. I don't accept that the Hudson's building was a trade-off for the projects you listed, regardless of whether or not the demolition of Hudson's and your listed projects are ultimately good for downtown. To suggest that the Park Bar, Cliff Bell's and Merchant's Row [[which is vacant, I believe) woudn't exist if the Hudson's building hadn't come down is pure speculation, fantastical. I believe the only point you desired to make was that you think any one who bemoans any demolished buildings is a 'weenie'. You could've cut to the chase.

[PQZ]

I don't accept that the Hudson's building was a trade-off for the projects you listed, regardless of whether or not the demolition of Hudson's and your listed projects are ultimately good for downtown. To suggest that the Park Bar, Cliff Bell's and Merchant's Row [[which is vacant, I believe) woudn't exist if the Hudson's building hadn't come down is pure speculation, fantastical.

Its not pure speculation, its from nearly a decade of direct, daily professional experience with each and every one of the projects listed.

Cliff Bells and Park Bar were part of the DDA's facade improvemment program which was funded to the tune of about $6 million of DDA funds, with the rest from matching dollars from foundations. Go talk to Jerry Balanger, or search the Freep from around the time the bars opened, as to whethetr he could have made the project work. Jerry got roughly $150,000 in facade grants that allowed him to
purchase the building that houses both bars. Walk in to the Park Bar tonight and ask Jerry directly if he could have done the project without the grants and he will tell you flatly no, he couldn't have.

Merchant's Row is not vacant and has roughly 120 high end apartments with leaseable, modern upfitted retail sapce. Six buildings were taken from vacant to fully renovated. That cost the DDA about $14 million in its direct funds by time it was done.

Simple accounting. The facade improvement program and the DDA investment in Mechants Row totaled $20 million. If the DDA spent $20 million on mothballing the Hudson's Building, it would not have had the $20 million to put into Merchants Row and the Facade Improvement Program - which by the way, helped more than 85 buildings in dowtown in a period of 3 years.

This isn't an esoteric question of whether Merchants Row gained or lost market viability with or without the Hudson's Building. It is a question of the allocation of DDA funds. Many people on the board have loudly and quite abrasively argued that if the Hudsons had been mothballed it would have been redeveloped by now. The Chicago Post Office along with the realities of the local market, show that contention to be laughable at best.

While City leadership and economic development acotrs were excortiated at the time by preservation activists, the response they gave was that sinking millions in to mothballing the building would prevent them from funding a wider array of smaller projects that would have a cumulative impact greater than a mothballed Hudsons with far less risk.

Looks like those folks making that call for a long term, diversified approach to capital allocations might have had it right.

[EastsideAl]

I'm not sure how Chicago's rules work, but in NYC air rights are rather commonly sold to adjacent landholders, allowing them to build larger buildings than would have been permitted on their site under their original zoning rights. I once lived in a six story apartment building in Manhattan that had its air rights purchased by a nearby educational institution, which in turn sold off those rights to a developer who used them to build a large hospital and medical office building on the street behind us. And I later lived in a high rise apartment building there that had been built using air rights sold [[for a piece of the building) by the adjacent YMCA.

[1KielsonDrive]

PQZ, I'm not denying your involvement and experience. I still believe these are your opinions, experienced opinions at that. But I don't agree that one necessarily follows the other as fact. I think the key in your last post was the final four words : "might have had it right". Yep , they might have.