1963 project would have given Marina City serious competition

In 2007, a plan to build an 89-story tower at Wolf Point, where the main branch of the Chicago River splits into the north and south branches, fell through.

But more than 40 years earlier, plans for an 80-story cylindrical apartment building, on the river near Merchandise Mart, fell through.

At 782 feet, it would have been the tallest building in Chicago and the fourth-highest structure in the world, and that does not even include the 571-foot broadcast antenna. The design was clearly intended to build on the success of Marina City four blocks to the east.

Announced on April 29, 1963, at a news conference in Mayor Richard J. Daley’s office, the plan was for a giant cylindrical glass and steel tower with a detached perimeter frame, elevated on stilts. Covering 5.67 acres, the project would include 1,300 apartments, ice-skating rinks, tennis courts, a 330-seat theater, and other recreational facilities. A four-story 320-room hotel would be built north of the tower.

The architect was Charles Booher Genther (1907-1987), founder of PACE Associates, a planning, architecture, and engineering firm that worked on early drawings of Marina City.

Construction of the $45 million project would have started in mid-1964 and be completed, developers estimated, in late 1965 or early 1966. They got at least as far as a permit from the FAA for the broadcast antenna. It is not known exactly when the project was cancelled.

In 2007, a joint venture that included the Kennedy family, which owns Wolf Point and once owned Merchandise Mart, announced it would develop the area into an 89-story hotel, residential, and office tower. The project was officially cancelled by 2010.

Wolf Point is an area in the northwest corner of the Loop, near Merchandise Mart. French explorers stopped there in the 17th Century. In 1831, a popular tavern and hotel, Sauganash Hotel, was built. The newly formed Town of Chicago held many town meetings there in the 1830s.

(Left) Wolf Point in 2010, as seen from Marina City.