The race to build the world’s tallest building may be sparking some of the world’s toughest infighting as secrecy-shrouded meetings go on among developers, city officials, television broadcasters, financial backers and prospective office tenants.
Scott Toberman, president of European American Realty Ltd., reacted scornfully to an announcement this week that Prime Group Realty Trust has changed its plans for its development at 300 N. LaSalle St. to put up a 2,000-foot mixed-use spire topped by a television antenna mast urgently needed by local broadcasters.
Toberman, who last month announced his plans for a similar structure at Dearborn and Madison Streets, characterized Prime Chairman Michael Reschke’s announcement as “public relations” put out because Reschke is behind on a world’s tallest project.
“I’m specifically precluded from talking about it, but I do have the money and I am going to make the deal,” snapped Toberman. “You haven’t gotten the story yet, but I’m not going to (mess) this up by talking to the press.”
There are reportedly at least half a dozen developers who have presented plans for giant buildings crowned with antennas to a committee representing local television broadcasters, who in the next few years need a 2,000-foot-tall transmission tower in order to change over to high-definition television while still doing regular broadcasts.
Mayor Richard M. Daley likely wouldn’t permit an unsightly, possibly hazardous stand-alone tower in the city, and a location farther out isn’t practical. As a result, broadcasters would be willing to commit in advance to leasing space from a developer putting up a downtown building with an antenna.
But only one antenna installation is needed, which makes the rivalry among the developers extraordinarily intense.
Talking tall: In the midst of all the tall tales, Chicago Planning Commissioner Christopher Hill warns that something has to occupy the space underneath the antenna masts.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the antenna, but the first order of business is the strong office market in the city,” he said.
“You have to make it work with office space, and if you don’t have the space, you can’t make it work.”
The angling is fierce for such potential tenants as insurance giant Aon Corp., investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. and law firms Skadden Arps and Lord Bissell & Brook, big space-users reportedly contemplating new digs.
But there’s a lot less personal courting of tenants by developers than in years past, according to veteran commercial real estate executive Jacque Ducharme, manager of Julien J. Studley Inc.’s Chicago office.
“It’s pretty mellow. You’re not seeing anything more than golf outings, dinner or lunches,” Ducharme said. “And in some corporations you can’t take somebody out to lunch.”
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Ducharme recalled one incident many years ago in which a broker whose wife played bridge with the wife of a reclusive corporate chairman was offered a $100,000 deal by a building representative to have his wife pass on a letter to the chairman’s wife.
The chairman, who hadn’t been taking calls from brokers, got the letter and was ultimately persuaded to move his corporate offices to a new building, and the broker got the money.
“I haven’t heard lately any crazy things like that,” Ducharme said.
In fact, the process of office selection has become fairly dry and scientific, he pointed out. “The only sexy part is what the view looks like and the private parking space. You’re feeding data into somebody else’s computers. The presentations can put you to sleep, talking about freight elevators. . . .”
Real deal: Even if the tallest building outlook is still uncertain, at least a more modest project appears to be getting under way in a just-off-Loop location.
Development Resources and Walton Street Capital have scheduled groundbreaking on Friday for Union Tower, a 17-story, 330,000-square-foot office building at 550 W. Van Buren.
That could make it the first new downtown office building to be built–not just schemed about–since the early 1990s.