Allen Richards' Blog: The Sinclair Surprises Again, Builds Amusement Park

The home-stretch section of the water slide/roller coaster taking shape at The Sinclair.

NOTE: Just before press time, we received a tip on the Chicago Architecture tip line, informing us that there is absolutely no amusement park planned on site of The Sinclair. It was too late to update this story. As it turns out, what we have for you are everyday construction update photos. We apologize for any confusion.

We’ve been surprised by The Sinclair so many times, it might be best to just hang out there every day from now on, and catch things as they happen.

First, there was Benny the Bull, and a skyscraper-shaped cake, at the groundbreaking. Then, the installation of not one, but two tower cranes.

What looks like a portion of dirt track, likely for go-carts.

But neither of those prepared us for what we found upon our last visit to Fifield Companies‘ residential tower in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. Without a single leak getting out to the media, under cover of darkness, work crews from McHugh Construction have been building a new amusement park for the residents of the soon-to-be 390-unit apartment development. No mention of the bonus amenity was ever depicted in any of the Solomon Cordwell Buenz renderings sent to our office, so it appears the park idea was very much a last-minute addition to the plans.

It’s hard to say from the preliminary efforts if (what we assume will be called) Sinclair Park will have a roller coaster, or water ride, but the framework is unmistakable. Rising from the northwest corner of the lot at Clark and Division, there appears to be the apex of the ride, from which riders will either shoot down the rapids of the log flume, or throw their hands in the air as the coaster hurtles downhill at lightning speeds. Though it’s possible the wooden mountain could be used as one of those mega-slides where you sit in a burlap sack and ride the waves to the bottom.

Whichever the case may be, it will be fun to watch progress on the park, and see how long construction workers can hold out before they succumb to temptation and take the first ride, before the park officially opens. Which presumably will be in the summer of 2017, when The Sinclair itself will open to residents.