page_title: Chicago Spire
section_title: Financial crisis and suspension of construction
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago Spire / Development / Financial crisis and suspension of construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Chicago Spire
context_page_description: The Chicago Spire was a skyscraper project in Chicago that was partially built between 2007 and 2008 before being cancelled. Located at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, it would have stood 2,000 feet high with 150 floors and been the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. When originally proposed as the Fordham Spire in July 2005, the design had 116 stories, included a hotel and condominiums, and was topped with a broadcast antenna mast. The building was designed and spearheaded by Spanish architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava and Chicago developer Christopher T. Carley of the Fordham Company. On March 16, 2006, the Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved the initial design of the building. On November 4, 2014, a court ruling brought the original development plan and the extended litigation over the nine-year-old project to a close. Developer Garrett Kelleher signed over the property location to the project's biggest creditor, Related Midwest, who announced that they would not build the Spire and released their plans for the site.
context_section_description: By October 2008, the late-2000s recession was beginning to affect the project.  Construction was suspended and the tower's architect, Santiago Calatrava, placed an $11.34 million lien on the construction site, stating that Kelleher had not yet paid him for his work.  Within a few months Anglo Irish Bank, the primary lender for the project, was on the brink of financial collapse.  The bank's stocks had lost nearly all of their value and Anglo Irish Bank was facing nationalization.  Due to the bank's dire financial situation, Shelbourne Development was forced to suspend construction, and would eventually have to pay back the $69.5 million (USD) it had already borrowed.
  Additional litigation and liens threatened the project by Autumn 2009.  The owner of the NBC Tower in Chicago sued to evict Shelbourne Development from their sales office, where extensive modeling of Chicago Spire units had been installed.  The lawsuit alleged that Shelbourne was behind $316,000 (USD) in lease payments.  In addition to this and other liens listed on the property, Bank of America filed a lawsuit against Shelbourne Development for $4.92 million (USD).  The lawsuit was an attempt to collect that sum on two unpaid loans used for initial construction at the Chicago Spire site.
  After these setbacks, the AFL-CIO and Kelleher announced in late 2009 that they were discussing the potential for a $170 million (USD) land loan that would retire Kelleher's loan from Anglo Irish Bank, pay off the outstanding liens, and restart work in exchange for making the construction a complete union job. Due to the lack of construction and the sluggish economy, Chicago unions were desperate to find work for their employees as they faced near 30% unemployment.  Construction of the Chicago Spire would have provided approximately 900 full-time jobs to union members for four years if construction had resumed. In addition to the $194 million (USD) that Kelleher has invested personally in the project already, backup financing of an unspecified amount and from an unknown source in the form of mezzanine capital and bridge loans has been guaranteed and would have kicked in automatically if the $170 million (USD) AFL-CIO loan had been secured.
  But within weeks of the official announcement that Kelleher was searching for union bailouts, four major labor union investment funds declined to offer Shelbourne Development any loans.  Kelleher continued to search for financing. Shelbourne Development faced eviction from its offices on the 50th floor of 111 South Wacker Drive on which Shelbourne owed $27,600 in unpaid rent. Earlier in the year, the spire's Chicago sales office had been ejected from the nearby NBC Tower.
  In October 2010 Anglo Irish Bank Corp. filed a $77 million foreclosure lawsuit against Kelleher, claiming that loans made to Kelleher's development company had been in default for a year. The bank was expected to take possession of the site. By the end of the year, courts handed control of the site to a receiver, leaving the project (at the time) dead. In addition, two Chicago firms purchased the tax lien certificates on the property.
caption: The construction site has been dormant since late 2008.
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