Pondering Blowholes at Northerly Island

Studio Gang's Framework for the New Northerly Island

A reader recently sent us an article published on Arch Daily called, "Studio Gang Breaks Ground on Ecologically Diverse Urban Mecca".  This is in reference to their plans for Northerly Island.

If you recall, back in the fall of 2012, we posted about this and its apparent ground breaking in November.  While it sounds like they're moving forward with the plan, it's just one phase of the plan (the Southern End).  The cost is approximately $6.5 million and is detailed in the image below:

Image from Chicago Journal

While the Arch Daily article didn't provide any new information as far as we can tell, it did spark some additional curiosity on our end and as a result we did some more reading.  After all it's February in Chicago and we need to fantasize about warmer weather activities.

Anyway, we downloaded Studio Gang's entire presentation (which is 56 pages) and read through it.  While we learned a ton (like the plan calls for a new bridge at Waldon Drive), one thing fascinated us.  If the actual plan takes shape like the image at the top of our post (which is still a long shot) the new Northerly Island is going to have a blowhole (from page 31):

Image from Chicago Magazine article

This portion of the Northerly Island plan (the reef islands on the Eastern part of the plan) is probably the most unlikely since it would cost North of $100+ million and require congressional authorization.  Regardless, it's fun to ponder if Northerly Island could someday have a blowhole like an island Hawaii (cue youtube video of blowhole):


(Hat tip: BMP!)