When the Chicago Spire project—a plan for a 2,000-foot high, sexily curving, starchitect-designed tower calculated to bring a new global prominence to the city—suddenly returned to the spotlight last year, it seemed symbolic. From its effusively celebrated proposal to its sudden crash in 2008, the project's development not-so-subtly paralleled the country's financial optimism, risk-taking, and hasty downfall.

First proposed in 2005, the Spire's development gained attention from the neighborhood all the way to the international level. An apparent vanity project, the luxury development was designed with dazzle in mind. Mayor Daley praised it as environmentally friendly. Influential Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin followed it closely, with excitement and occasional reservations. In New York, Donald Trump dismissed the building with typical paranoia as a budding target for terrorists. Coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Guardian ranged from amused to awe-inspired, anticipating the building as the "city's snazziest," one that "stretches the limit."

By 2008, the picture was starker: in October of that year, Shelbourne Development shut down the project, with its primary lender, Anglo Irish Bank, facing nationalization. A flurry of lawsuits followed: from architect Santiago Calatrava, who placed an $11.34 million lien on the Spire in the hope of being paid, and from Bank of America, which filed a $4.92 million lawsuit in an attempt to collect on unpaid construction loans. Shelbourne was drowning—after months of falling behind on rent, even NBC Tower, the home of the developer's downtown office, started the process of bringing an eviction lawsuit against the company....Continue Reading

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