• Posted: July 17, 2019
• Community Building

In late March, construction crews began the initial process of preparing the skyline-altering development, known officially as One Chicago, for construction. Crews have been busy putting up fencing and removing trees and light poles at the block-sized site across from Holy Name Cathedral in the city’s River North neighborhood.

Once completed, the project is projected to be the sixth tallest building in Chicago with two towers soaring to 969 and 574 feet, respectively. In addition to the 78-story and 49-story glass towers, mixed-use space for offices and retail will dot the lower portion of the project at street level.

Powering Chicago’s Huen Electric was awarded the contract and is set to begin work early next year.

“We’re scheduled to start around April 2020 and completion is somewhere late 2022 early 2023,” Robert Cole, Huen’s Director of Business Development, said.

Huen is no stranger to high-rise buildings like One Chicago. The company did the electrical for Trump Tower in 2005 and have done other projects like this in the city. The biggest challenge with One Chicago is just the location.

“The Biggest challenge to a project like this is getting material to the site since it’s in the middle of a busy city,” said Don Marciniak, Senior Project Manager, Huen Electric. “It’s in the heart of downtown so deliveries can be difficult to coordinate.”

The roughly 40 IBEW 134 electricians that Huen will have on site are responsible for the build-out of the 742 residential units that are split between apartments and high-end condos.

The project is scheduled to take approximately three years to complete, but to move things along, JDL Development and Power Construction are utilizing a top-down strategy which means the building will be going up in a normal sequence as the subfloors are being poured. Typically, the subfloors are finished before a project can come out of the ground.

“They’re utilizing an up-down strategy so they’re going up sooner than when they typically would,” said Marciniak.

“Safety is paramount here,” Cole added. “We have a safety professional dedicated to this and Power Construction is dedicated to it and won’t let a tight schedule jeopardize anyone’s safety.”

One Chicago is the most significant building to break ground in Chicago since Wanda Vista in 2016. Both buildings will help reimage Chicago’s skyline.