Look up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a … 21-story skyscraper full of self-storage units?
Yep. The aptly-named U-Stor-It is opening the tallest self-storage facility in all of Chicago at 615 S. Wabash Ave. in South Loop on January 31st of next year.
If that address sounds familiar, it’s because the 243-foot concrete and brick building was once the historic Harrison Hotel Electric Garage. It was designed by Chicago architect Alfred S. Alschuler and built in 1930 for guests of the Harrison Hotel (now a Travelodge) to park their car inside.
So now instead of driving your car to the building once and leaving it parked inside, you’ll be able to pack your stuff, fit some of it in your car, drive your car to the building, store your stuff in one of the building’s 1,000+ self-storage units, and not leave your car parked inside. Because you still have to drive back home and repeat the process. Multiple times. Hopefully with the help of some friends and a truck because your sofa, dining table, and chairs don’t fit in your car. And that’s just half of the self-storage equation.
The historic building at 615 S. Wabash Ave. could have housed the following:
- Gorgeous and spacious micro-apartments like the ones in Gateway West Loop
- An environment-friendly and self-sustaining Vertical City that has everything you need to survive, including food, housing, schools, hospitals, entertainment, and more
- A Vertical Farm that grows healthy, leafy greens in half the time it takes a traditional farm
- Anything else but self-storage units
- Or nothing at all, because it’s a historic building
Oh well. At least the self-storage unit skyscraper will have an elevator to help offset the arduousness. And a mural by a famous artist on the building’s western façade as an added cultural bonus.
