Sorry if we seem a little Spire-happy lately, but it’s not every day that the tallest exclusively residential building in the world is planned for Chicago. Though, now that we think about it, that sort of thing does seem to happen here more than most places.
Anyhoo … plenty of observers, Yo’s truly included, think that The Chicago Spire’s twisting profile would make a great addition to the skyline. But how does that exuberant design, which has been variously compared to a drill bit, a corkscrew and a portion of the male anatomy, translate into living space for buyers?
Floor plans are not yet available on the Spire Web site, but we scanned a couple of paper copies to post them for you (sorry the quality isn’t better, but they’re not too bad if you click for the larger versions). Overall prices at the condo tower, planned to be 2,000 feet high, range from the $750s to $40 million. Condos will range from 534 to 10,293 square feet, but detailed pricing info for individual units is not yet available.
Here’s a taste of how the homes will lay out. The top unit, residence 7601, is a three-bedroom with 3.5 baths and 4,071 square feet. The unit below, residence 12609, is a four-bedroom penthouse with four full and two half baths, “staff quarters” and 6,935 square feet.
I’m guessing the buyers’ designers are going to vary these plans from what’s shown here.
There’s more space devoted to traffic flow than I’ve seen in any other units of this size.
Open kitchens and bedrooms as the only private spaces may be hard for some higher-end buyers to accept.
The baths, as illustrated, display little familiarity with, or perhaps regard for, American conventions.
I was also amazed by the amount of space devoted to traffic flow, and I’m sure walls will emerge once buyers customize these very open plans.
What did you mean about the bathrooms? I did think the placement of the master bath in the middle of the master bedroom floor was a little odd. Making it the centerpiece seems to result in a lot of wasted / awkward space in that second floor plan.
Barry,
that bedroom is almost 1000 square feet. Plenty of space to waste.
It’s never wrong to minimize partitions and open up a broad panoramic view. Providing lots of little rooms is foolish, old fashioned, and unsexy. Not many sophisticated buyers give a damn about conventional American wisdom on floor plans. Media rooms are as passe as Lincoln Navigators.
Barry,
I was reacting to the vanity sizes – easy to reorient the toilet / sink to get a much larger vanity in these baths, or at least some of them.
pk,
Never say never.
Who said anything about “little rooms.” That penthouse is almost 7,000 square feet, and there isn’t a single semi-private area apart from the bedrooms. It’s possible that while mom’s playing the piano in the “Entertainment lounge,” Suzy or Billy might want a place to watch TV without a Chopin soundtrack.
I’m not suggesting some kind of Victorian compartmentalization of the space, but in practical terms an old-fashioned wall comes in handy now and again.
Unless your life is a “Thin Man” movie – in which case, this is the best space I’ve ever seen for nightly cocktail parties.