Trump Tower and The Donald

Chicago's Trump Tower ready to be 'topped off'

Construction workers plan to make the last significant concrete pour Saturday at the top of the Trump International Hotel & Tower, a milestone in the construction of what will be the second-largest building in Chicago.

ARCHITECTURE REVIEW

Our architecture critic evaluates Trump's new restaurant

Chicago architect Joe Valerio, who designed the new, up-in-the-sky restaurant in Donald Trump's still-growing 92-story tower, likes to say it is a community space for everyone who can afford the price of a Coke at the bar. Well, a Coke at Donald Trump's bar will set you back $4.50, which tells you that this is a community space not for average Joes but for people in high tax brackets or star-struck types who will shell out big for a remote chance to get an in-person glimpse of The Donald.

Trump tower tenants sue over deal changes

More condo buyers in the new Trump tower are griping about promises the flamboyant developer allegedly has failed to keep, according to lawsuits.

1st look at Trump hotel reveals 5-star views

Two hours after the Trump International Hotel & Tower opened its doors to the public for the first time on Wednesday, the staff of the hotel's restaurant, Sixteen, were bent over crimson cases of Taittinger champagne.

Live from Trump Tower

Glenn Jeffers, At Play's Chicago Sleeps columnist, is spending the night at the new Trump Hotel (at the Tribune's expense). He's been sending updates throughout the day, and will be filing more observations Thursday morning. Read about his stay so far:

Trump hotel in Chicago may be picketed by Unite Here

Trump International Hotel & Tower plans on opening Wednesday, and the hotel workers' union is likely to soon show up, but not by invitation.

Trump hits into rough in Scotland

Donald Trump, the Barnum-esque New York property developer, has swept into this small seaside community with grandiose plans to build "The World's Greatest Golf Resort."

A bogey in Chicago too

Trump International Hotel & Tower, The Donald's 92-story mixed-use building at Wabash Avenue and the Chicago River, is expected to be completed in April 2009. The project hit its first snag last week, delaying the opening of several floors as it awaits its partial occupancy permit from the city.

Trump's hotel opening may be delayed

Developer Donald Trump is running into one tough customer as he races to get his riverside luxury hotel opened by Dec. 3, as originally promised.

Trump undoing deals

The letter from Donald Trump's lawyer didn't say, "You're fired." But it said something close.

The daughter also rises

On a recent morning, Donald Trump's 25-year-old daughter, Ivanka -- who joins him Sunday in the Los Angeles boardroom of "The Apprentice" -- came striding into the lobby of his local headquarters, on the 20th floor of the former IBM Building, looking beautiful and rich, with her long yellow hair flowing past her shoulders and a brown velvet pantsuit glued attractively to her slender frame.

TEMPO UPDATE

Trump's harrumph

Donald Trump hung up on me this week after he phoned to defend the blatantly commercial, 10-foot-tall Michigan Avenue kiosk for his 92-story hotel-condo.

Trim in store for Trump's promotional kiosk sign

So this is the way it happens in this toddlin' town. You go out of town, as I did last week, and you come back and find that a giant kiosk has materialized in front of the Wrigley Building.

TEMPO UPDATE: BUILDING TRUMP TOWER

The high life

Mike Freeman's office is a snap to find, but the commute is a nightmare.

TEMPO UPDATE

Trump's Big Pour

Builders of the Trump Tower, which will be the world's tallest concrete-reinforced building when it's completed in 2009, got serious over the weekend about their concrete.

As Trump tower rises, worries pile up

This story contains corrected material, published Sept. 28, 2005.

FRONT AND CENTER

Trump Jr. builds on roots

Donald Trump Jr., vice president of development and acquisition for New York-based Trump Corp., visits Chicago nearly every Tuesday to check progress on the 92-story skyscraper the firm is building on the former site of the Chicago Sun-Times building. The 27-year-old executive shared some of his thoughts about the project and Chicago in an interview with Tribune reporter Susan Diesenhouse.

Trump wants to school you

Say this much for Donald Trump: When he launches a new enterprise, he's never stuck for a name.

Another perspective: views around the worksites

Carl Sandburg got it right when he penned these words about an earlier Chicago building boom: "Put the city up / tear the city down / put it up again / let us find a city."

Outdoor theater: A spectacle in progress

The Bovis Lend Lease construction company has played key roles building Disneyland Paris, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Time Warner Center in New York, but never has it occupied a stage quite like the one in Chicago.

Rooted in bedrock, reaching for the sky

The tower will soar above the skyline, but right now there is only an open space by the Chicago River, a home to construction equipment and a matter of fascination to neighbors.

ARCHITECTURE

Getting to the point: A tower's aspirations

Call it "tinkering with the top."

Trump dumps lofty goal for tower's spire

Donald Trump's spire isn't going higher.

Trump's spire plan up in air for a while

Donald Trump, in Chicago to talk with financial backers of his proposed hotel and condominium tower, said Thursday it could be as long as two months before final plans are agreed on for the spire that will determine the look and height of the top the building.

Trump aspires to new heights

First Donald Trump wanted to do away with a decorative spire atop his hotel and condominium tower on the Chicago River. Then Mayor Richard Daley asked him to put it back on the building's plans.

ARCHITECTURE

Playing the Trump card on spire

Donald Trump knows a thing or two about gambling and its pitfalls. He runs a casino empire that went bankrupt.

ARCHITECTURE

Aspire to greatness

You had to wonder when Donald Trump's Chicago skyscraper would descend into a circus. Last week, it showed signs of doing just that when city officials and Trump sources revealed that The Donald may stretch the spire atop his tower to potentially absurd lengths -- at least 359 feet, or nearly as big as the entire Wrigley Building. That would be tall enough to surpass Sears Tower as the nation's tallest building and even edge the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia as the world's second tallest building.

TRUMP TOWER UPDATE

Daley to Trump: You're spired!

Donald Trump knows what he likes, and he didn't like a spire on his Chicago building.

ARCHITECTURE

One Trump reality worth all the hype

Donald Trumps's 90-story hotel and condominium tower, which appears more real than ever after Thursday's ceremonial start of demolition on the Chicago Sun-Times Building, has more going for it than the hype associated with the reality TV show "The Apprentice."

SIDEBAR

Trump: `We really hit it here'

Flamboyant New York real estate developer Donald Trump talked with the Tribune last week about the dreams and disappointments associated with his planned 90-story hotel and condominium tower in Chicago. He also discussed how the project's design would cost him more and dropped the news that he's likely to have his own condominium there. An edited transcript follows:

FALL '04 PREVIEW ARCHITECTURE

10X10 BEST BETS

Will Trump's tower happen?

It seems odd that the most widely anticipated architectural event in Chicago this fall is not a new building, but a demolition. Yet such is the celebrity of Donald "You're Fired" Trump these days that the pending destruction of the barge like, seven-story Chicago Sun-Times building along the Chicago River, which is to make way for Trump's 90-story hotel-condominium tower, is sure to get a lot of attention, perhaps more than it deserves.

Will Trump say: 'You're higher'?

Donald Trump has a new choice to make, but it's not Bill versus Kwame.

The wit and wisdom of Trump*

"All my life I've been hit in the head with plaster."