Donald Trump knows what he likes, and he didn’t like a spire on his Chicago building.
“I hated the look of it,” Trump said in October while discussing a recent design of the tower.
Mayor Daley knows what he likes too. His tastes run toward the ornamental–concrete planters and wrought iron.
And the mayor wanted his skyline to have a spire in it.
In December, when the Donald was in town pitching his new fragrance, the mayor and the mogul went face to face in Daley’s 5th-floor office in City Hall.
“He said, ‘I want a spire. It’s important to the skyline,’ ” Trump spokeswoman Jill Cremer said of Daley.
And so it is that the latest design for Trump tower is topped by a pointy spike that–depending on how one counts it–could make the building the second-tallest in the city and in America, not to mention the seventh tallest in the world.
“He does like spires,” Trump remarked of Daley on Wednesday.
So to the summits of Chicago’s skyline–the Sears Tower, Aon Center and John Hancock Center–add the new Trump Tower. With a pointed, decorative spire, please.
Advocates of spires say they can add a spiritual presence to an urban skyline. Cesar Pelli, who designed the sky-piercing Petronas Towers, built in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1996, has called them the point where the ground blends into the firmament. Profane meets sacred. A silhouette pointing to the heavens is etched into a city’s sky.
Exactly how Trump’s building will point to the heavens isn’t clear yet–the latest design for the tower and its spire hasn’t been made public.
(Here’s a glimpse of who’s got the upper hand here: Trump ordered the building’s latest plans released Wednesday. But his Chicago architects and real estate attorney refused–Daley, they said, had not seen and signed off on them.)
But details trickled out. As currently designed, the spire will rise to 1,360 feet, said Adrian Smith, the skyscraper’s chief architect in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Trump said Wednesday that he was poised to spend $3 million on the spire alone, adding it to what is already a 1,125-foot,
92-story residential office tower costing $750 million. Two extra floors were added without increasing the building’s height because the skyscraper will be supported by a concrete frame rather than steel. That will eliminate the need to place concrete floor slabs atop steel beams.
City bureaucrats will have to approve the new plans. If they do, the tower would become the second-tallest building in Chicago–well above the 1,136-foot Aon Center and the 1,127-foot John Hancock Center, but 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot Sears Tower, the nation’s tallest building.
It would make Trump’s skyscraper 90 feet taller than the 1,250-foot Empire State Building, which is, after the Sears, the national runner-up.
Though Trump’s Chicago tower will clearly secure a place in the global pantheon of tall buildings, it likely will slip before long.
The planned Freedom Tower at ground zero in lower Manhattan is supposed to rise to 1,776 feet, a height that would symbolically refer to the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
And though the world’s tallest building is the 1,670-foot Taipei 101 in Taiwan, Skidmore last year announced construction had begun on a multiuse tower it designed for the United Arab Emirates that will soar to more than 2,000 feet.
Further muddying Trump Tower Chicago’s place in the world is the arcane way in which the informal arbiters of the world’s tallest structures decide which spindly points atop soaring buildings count toward a building’s total height and which do not.
On balance, said Seattle engineer Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, structural elements like spires count. Think of the spire atop the Chrysler Building in New York City. Communications antennas do not. Think of the twin masts atop the Sears Tower or the John Hancock.
Looking at drawings of the Trump Tower’s tiptop from May, Klemencic said he smelled a controversy brewing.
“This is not a slam-dunk,” he said. When the building’s design is finalized–perhaps by the end of the week–Klemencic’s group of a dozen or so architects, engineers and designers from around the world will e-mail the drawings to each other, squint at their computer screens and type furious arguments. Thus is the pecking order of the world’s tallest buildings mysteriously decided.
“A condition like this is always hotly debated even within our organization, I can tell you that much,” Klemencic said.
The story of the Trump Tower’s silhouette says as much about the forces behind urban landscapes as it does about the buildings that make them up.
As with Chicago’s ubiquitous flower planters and wrought-iron fences, Daley serves two roles–he is both chief politician and chief planner, and he micromanages design details that other big-city mayors typically relegate to subordinates.
And though it is unclear where he hit upon rooftop spires, Daley clearly liked the idea.
After the original, blocky designs for the riverfront site of the former Chicago Sun-Times building, 401 N. Wabash Ave., were scrapped, the mayor was among those who saw the pinnacle above the redrawn version of the Trump Tower and liked it.
Trump was less impressed with the spire in the redrawn design.
“I wanted to shave it for two reasons,” he said. “I’d save money, and I didn’t like the original top of the building.”
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More bad news for The Donald
OnScreen: Donald Trump eats up media attention, but this next slice of publicity might be cause for concern. ABC is producing an unauthorized made-for-TV movie on the real estate mogul, set to begin filming in March.
Trump says as long as the two-hour biopic is accurate–you know, with lots of supermodels and someone devastatingly handsome in the main role–he’s fine with it, according to “Access Hollywood.”
Producers of the ABC movie reportedly plan to exclude mention of “The Apprentice,” which airs on NBC.
IN THE COURTS: A quadriplegic attorney accused Donald Trump and “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett of discriminating against disabled people who want to try out for the reality TV show because the application requires candidates to be in “excellent” physical health.
James Schottel, 32, who was paralyzed after a spinal cord injury, filed a federal lawsuit against the pair as a preemptive measure and hopes the judge this week will order the producers to let him apply for the show. Auditions in St. Louis, where Schottel lives, begin Friday.
Meanwhile, an NBC source told E! that two people confined to wheelchairs were interviewed for the show last week.
— REDEYE
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FACE OFF
Mayor Daley vs. Donald Trump
Donald Trump is used to getting his way, but so is Mayor Daley. This round, the new kid in town came up empty, and the mayor got his spire for the skyline. What next? We explore how the two giants match up–face to face and ego to ego.
— ALISON NEUMER, REDEYE
BOSS FACTOR
Whether you think he’s a god or a monster, the mayor gets it done. Daley’s had a long run and survived a slew of scandals.
Trump manages a sprawling empire of hotels and casinos, but still finds time to pimp his image and personal line of products. Also, he gets right to the point: You’re fired!
Winner: Daley. They’re both heavy-handed managers, but while The Donald’s kingdom spans the country, the mayor actually rules his.
MEDIA LOVE
The mayor has a posse of reporters hanging on his every word. He also has a reputation for unforgettable–sometimes unintelligible–comments and for riffing on any topic thrown at him.
Shameless self-promoter who can’t bear to be out of the spotlight. Trump even weighed in on Brad and Jen’s breakup.
Winner: Daley. He doesn’t have to work at it.
HAIR
Average brown hair, starting to bald and gray in some spots.
A voluminous golden mane–not a rug, he insists–that comes around the corner before he does.
Winner: Trump. When people interview you about your hair, it’s gotta be good.
CELEB POWER
The mayor is a nationally known figure from a powerful Chicago family who can hobnob with anyone.
His wedding landed on the cover of People magazine, and the guest list included a constellation of big stars.
Winner: Trump. Must be nice to have the A-list at your beck and call.
PERSONAL SHRINE
The half-billion-dollar Millennium Park fits the bill–large, smack in the center of the city and visible from his brand-new penthouse.
Trump’s New York headquarters? His Palm Springs resort? His new wife, Melania Knauss Trump?
Winner: Push. So much money and power we can’t see straight.
OVERALL WINNER: Daley. He’s got the home-field advantage and the last word on Trump’s little Chicago project.
