Irish-backed €2bn spire to tower over Chicago

DESPITE the US economy’s downward spiral, it is onwards and upwards for the Irish-backed tallest residential tower in the world, to be built in a twisted shape in Chicago.

The 150-storey building, designed by the Spanish “starchitect” Santiago Calatrava, will reach 2,000ft in height by 2011. That’s the equivalent of 10 Liberty Halls in Dublin, or nine Cork’s County Halls.

Valued at more than $2 billion (€1.4bn), Chicago’s Spire is so big it leaves all else in the shade. The Spanish architect made bridges look sexy, with his engineering prowess, and his Chicago design, which moves on from a twisting tower he completed in Malmo, Sweden, is already being hailed by his architectural peers as “iconic”. That translates into expensive too, so only those who don’t have to ask the price can afford them. Already, a Savills selling website has 4,000 registered expressions of worldwide interest, including some high-earning Irish names, but whether many translate into booking deposits will rest on investor sentiment early next year. Many will look to “twist” on their Spire investments for a quick-ish buck.

The Spire is the personal passion of Irish developer Garrett Kelleher of Shelbourne Developments. His net worth has been put at $750 million (€531m) by the US media who watched the Spire’s official launch in Chicago last night, flying in the face of economic doom and gloom.

While the world has learned to fear the sub prime mortgage market time bomb, Kelleher’s only concern is prime real estate, and the only “sub” element is the seven basement floors of car parking he is putting in under his tower. The depth he is digging down is another first for Chicago, already home to some of the US’s most iconic buildings and revered architect.

Location is on just half of a mere two-acre plot beside the Chicago River, overlooking Lake Michigan, which Chicagoans will tell you is larger than the entire expanse of Switzerland.

The full-on Irish developer Garrett Kelleher is funding the start of the Chicago Spire project himself, and has projects in the US and Dublin, Ireland valued at €2.5 billion (€1.8bn).

The 46-year-old father of seven’s business career started in Chicago as a house painter back in 1984 and last night, Mr Kelleher painted the town red when he launched the vaultingly ambitious Chicago Spire project in front of 100 US media and 500 of Chicago’s rich and famous.

Buyers for the 1,200 apartments in this all-residential scheme (ie, no hotel, no offices, and unfortunately no public access to the finished top floor), will also have to be rich, if not famous. Prices start at $750,000 (€531,000) for a 500sqft one-bed, and soar right on up to $40 million (€28m) for a 10,000sqft duplex penthouse.

Another “first” is the size of the Spire’s marketing suite, a whopping 19,000sq ft, on the 18th floor of the NBC Tower in Chicago. It will have two sample apartments, with unique Calatrava design touches, from door handles to circular glass-walled bedrooms in the gallery suites.

It claims green design credentials, with cooling from the Chicago River, and will have the world’s longest elevator run.

Although sales via Savills and Savills Hamilton Osborne King in Ireland can’t start until January 14, until the last of the bureaucratic requirements are met, construction and foundations are under way and the structure will start to rise out of the ground in autumn 2008.

A finish date of 2011 is planned in for the pencil-like, or barley-twist structure, which could, if Chicago gets its way, be right on time for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago is the US’s candidate for the games, with the host city to be announced in 2009.