Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) Informations

The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named after businessman and the 45th U.S. President Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 98-story structure, which reaches a height of 1,388 feet (423.2 m) including its spire, its roof topping out at 1,171 feet (357 m). It is next to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. The building received publicity when the winner of the first season of The Apprentice reality television show, Bill Rancic, chose to manage the construction of the tower over managing a new Trump National Golf Course and resort in Los Angeles.

Trump announced in 2001 that the skyscraper would become the tallest building in the world, but after the September 11 attacks that same year, he scaled back the building's plans, and its design underwent several revisions. When topped out in 2009, it became the fourth-tallest building in the US. It surpassed the city's John Hancock Center as the building with the highest residence (apartment or condo) in the world, and briefly held this title until the completion of the Burj Khalifa.

The design of the building includes, from the ground up, retail space, a parking garage, a hotel and condominiums. The 339-room hotel opened for business with limited accommodations and services on January 30, 2008, then full accommodation and services on April 28. The building topped out in late 2008 and construction was completed in 2009. Sixteen was one of five restaurants in Chicago with at least a Michelin Guide two-star rating in 2016 and one of three five-star Forbes-rated restaurants in the city until it closed in 2018. The spa is one of six with at least a four-star Forbes rating in the Chicago area in 2015.

The tower sits at 401 North Wabash Avenue in the River North Gallery District, part of the Near North Side community area of Chicago. The building occupies the site vacated by the Chicago Sun-Times, one of the city's two major newspapers, and its location within the River North Gallery District places it in a neighborhood that has had a high concentration of art galleries since the 1980s. The site, at the foot of Rush Street, is on the north side of the Chicago River just west of the Wrigley Building and the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and just east of Marina City and 330 North Wabash. The building is close to numerous Chicago landmarks; it borders the Michigan-Wacker District, which is a Registered Historic District. Parts of the building are visible throughout the city, and the entire length of the building is visible from boats on the river, as well as from locations to the east along the river, such as the mouth of Lake Michigan, the Lake Shore Drive Overpass, and the Columbus Drive Bridge.

The building is across the Chicago River from the Chicago Loop, the city's business district. It is a block away from the southern end of the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue. The restaurant, Terrace 16, has a clear view of the Chicago River's entrance to Lake Michigan and of the four buildings completed in the 1920s that flank the Michigan Avenue Bridge (Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower, 333 North Michigan, and 360 North Michigan).

The design of the building incorporates three setback features designed to provide visual continuity with the surrounding skyline, each reflecting the height of a nearby building. The first setback, on the east side of the building, aligns with the cornice line of the Wrigley Building to the east; the second, on the west side, aligns with River Plaza to the north and with the Marina City Towers to the west. The third setback, on the east side, relates to 330 North Wabash building (formerly known as IBM Plaza). However, some views distort the alignment of the second setback.[a] The setbacks and rounded edges of the building combat vortex formation. The body of the building is raised 30 feet (9.1 m) above the main Wabash entrance and 70 feet (21 m) above the Chicago River. The building's Permasteelisa curtain wall uses clear low-emissivity coated glass and a curved wing-shaped polished stainless-steel mullion system that projects 9 inches (23 cm) from the glass line. It incorporates brushed stainless steel spandrel panels and clear anodized aluminum.

The building has 2,600,000 square feet (240,000 m2) of floor space, rises to 98 stories, and houses 486 luxury residential condominiums. These include studio apartments, a mixture of suites with one to four bedrooms, and five-bedroom penthouses. The tower also features a luxury hotel condominium with 339 guest rooms. The building includes, from the ground up, retail space, a parking garage, a hotel, and condominiums. The 3rd through 12th floors house lobbies, retail space, and the parking garage; the 14th floor and its mezzanine hosts a health club and spa. The 17th floor through the 27th-floor mezzanine contain hotel condominiums and executive lounges. The 28th through 85th floors have residential condominiums, and the 86th through 89th floors have penthouses. A 1.2-acre (0.49 ha) riverfront park and riverwalk, along a 500-foot (150 m) space in the area adjacent to the building to the east, was opened in the first half of 2010. The park facilitates public assembly and entertainment activity while linking the building effectively with river commuters.

In 2011, the riverfront park landscaping surrounding the building, which is referred to as Trump Plaza and Riverwalk or sometimes just Trump Plaza, became the subject of controversy. In 2010, the Plaza had earned special recognition at the Mayor Daley's Landscape Awards. The press release noted the landscaping "for their magnificent new civic landscape that is a poetic interpretation of native Illinois that seems at once sophisticated and familiar." However, in 2011, the award-winning plantings of small sumac trees, ferns and native grasses with yellow, orange and red hues were removed and replaced with evergreens like junipers and boxwoods, pieces of gray stone, and purple perennials (catmint and salvia), which may require less watering. To add to the controversy, the planting was accompanied by a plan to light the trees to attract nighttime park visitors, in conflict with the "dark skies" movement to reduce light pollution to facilitate better stargazing.

The building broke the record for the world's highest residence above ground level, held since 1969 by the nearby John Hancock Center. Because the Trump Tower has both hotel condominiums and residential condominiums, it does not contest the record held by the 88-story 432 Park Avenue in New York City, which, at 1,396 feet (425.5 m), is the tallest residential building in the world.

The Trump International Hotel and Tower rises 1,400 feet (426.7 m) from the building's main entrance on Wabash Avenue to the tip of the architectural spire. Upon its completion in 2009, the building became the seventh-tallest building in the world, behind the 1,380-foot (420.6 m) Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. On November 17, 2009, however, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which composes rankings of the tallest skyscrapers in the world based on various criteria, changed its standard for measuring a building's height. Prior to this change, a building's architectural height was calculated from the main entrance to the tip of the spire; new standards measured from the lowest open-air pedestrian level of a building. As the Trump International Hotel and Tower has a riverwalk entrance and pedestrian level 27 feet (8.2 m) below the building's Wabash Avenue entrance, the skyscraper's official height was recalculated as 1,388 feet (423.2 m) without a physical addition to the structure. According to the CTBUH, the recalculated height also made the tower the sixth-tallest building in the world, surpassing the Jin Mao Tower by 9 feet (2.7 m). In January 2010, the building moved back to its position as seventh-tallest with the opening of the 828-metre (2,717 ft) Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

According to Trump, he received approval for a 3,600-square-foot (334.5 m2) sign from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration in 2009, but renegotiated with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration. In October 2013, Trump received approval to erect 20-foot (6.1 m) tall stainless steel letters back-lit with white LED lighting spelling out TRUMP on the 16th floor of the building. He made his impending plans for the sign public in February 2014. According to a city planning department spokesperson, standard protocol for such a sign is to require approval from the local alderman (Brendan Reilly, 42nd ward) and the full Chicago City Council. The five letters span a width of approximately 141 feet (43 m), making the final approved version approximately 2,800 square feet (260.1 m2)—2,891 square feet (268.6 m2) according to some sources—rather than the originally proposed size. The sign is located about 200 feet (61 m) above ground level.

Crews began hanging the sign in May 2014. When Chicago Tribune architecture critic Kamin warned Trump that his review of the sign would be unfavorable, Trump responded "As time passes, it'll be like the Hollywood Sign"; architect Smith distanced himself from the sign saying "Just for the record, I had nothing to do with this sign!" The controversy surrounding the sign drew attention in the national press and international press as it neared completion and the Associated Press ran a story about Mayor Emanuel's disapproval in mid-June. According to the Mayor's spokeswoman Kelley Quinn, "Mayor Emanuel believes this is an architecturally tasteful building scarred by an architecturally tasteless sign". Kamin has noted that part of the problem is the architectural traditions of the city: "If this sign was in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, nobody would care—but it is in Chicago, and in a part of Chicago full of great buildings from the 1920s to the 1960s and onward". Trump and Reilly both pointed out how unbecoming the prior Chicago Sun-Times building signage was. As a result of the fiasco, Emanuel initiated a study on how to alter the rules to avert similar signage controversies in the future. A Chicago-based design firm planned to create and float four giant pig balloons in front of the sign as a protest, but were unsuccessful getting US Coast Guard and Chicago Department of Transportation approvals.

According to the "2010 City Guide: Chicago" edition of the Forbes Travel Guide, the building hosts one of the seven four-star restaurants in the city and one of the three four-star spas. The hotel is one of two four star hotels. In 2010 Chicago had two five-star hotels and two five-star restaurants. By the time of the Forbes Travel Guide: 2013 City Guide, the hotel and restaurant were each among only three five-star ratings in the city. It retained this ranking in the 2015 Forbes Guide (along with hotels The Peninsula and Four Seasons and with restaurants Alinea and Grace). The spa was among 6 four- or five-star Forbes-rated spas in the Chicago area in 2015.

The restaurant was promoted to two-star rating by the Michelin Guide for 2014 and retained that rating in 2015. It was one of 5 Chicago restaurants to achieve at least a two-star Michelin rating in both years. In 2016, it again retained its two-star rating as one of five restaurants in the city with such a rating.

The original plan was to have a partial opening of three of the hotel's floors on December 3, 2007, with a grand opening to follow. The interim ceremony, however, was delayed until January 30, 2008, while the City of Chicago granted occupancy approval for the staff of the hotel in the first 27 floors. Four floors of guest rooms were opened, comprising 125 of the planned 339 rooms. By January 30, construction on the exterior of the building had passed the 53rd floor. The grand opening of the hotel, including amenities, originally scheduled for March 17, 2008, took place on April 28, 2008.Pulitzer-Prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin faults the zebrawood paneling in the hotel lobby, but another Tribune reporter praises the hotel for its "understated, contemporary look, distinguished by stunning views".

On the 16th floor, a restaurant named Sixteen opened in early February 2008, and an outdoor patio terrace, named The Terrace at Trump, opened on June 25, 2009 following the completion of construction. The restaurant opened to favorable reviews for its cuisine, decor, location, architecture, and view. Sixteen, which was designed by Joe Valerio, is described architecturally as a sequence of spaces that do not reveal themselves at once, but rather in "procession". The restaurant's foyer is T-shaped, and a passageway to the hotel is lined with floor-to-ceiling architectural bronze wine racks in opposing red and white wine rooms. The passageway leads to views—praised by Kamin—that showcase the Wrigley Building clock tower and the Tribune Tower's flying buttresses. Kamin notes that these views are "more intimate" than the panoramic ones of the Signature Room, a restaurant near the top of the Hancock Center. The views are described as equally impressive by day and by night. The main part of the procession is the Tower Room, a dining room with a 30-foot (9.1 m) dome-shaped ceiling made of West African wood. The dome is furnished with Swarovski chandeliers and incorporates mirrors so that all diners can experience the view.

The Terrace, which opened on June 25, 2009, has views of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan as well as Navy Pier's seasonal Wednesday and Saturday evening fireworks, and was designed for outdoor or "al fresco" dining.

Located on the mezzanine level, Rebar—the hotel bar—opened on April 18, 2008.

On June 5, 2018, it was announced that Terrace 16 Restaurant and Bar would replace Sixteen. The newly themed dining space was expected to debut during the summer of 2018.

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