Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The New Firestone Looks Much Better

We've had a couple of posts on the Firestone at 1550 S. Wabash that was demolished and has since been rebuilt. Well more progress is being made and the new structure looks 100 times better then the old.

Although the old shop had character and sort of a charming, dingy auto shop vibe (which we kind of liked), the new shop is much easier on the eyes and aesthetically a big improvement.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

just reviewing the old posts makes me realize how slow this shop got built...seriously were there only two guys working on this thing all year! ...or maybe they were union (more likely the cause) lol

Anonymous said...

they didn't build for a while after demolishing. Once they started they put it up pretty quick

Anonymous said...

I was actually amazed at how quickly it went up, especially since they started late Fall/early Winter.

Anonymous said...

Anybody know when they go live?

Anonymous said...

Yummy! What's on the menu? We really need more places to eat in the sloop!!

Anonymous said...

Looks much better.

However, I wonder if it would have made a better "L"-Stop location for much cheaper than other discussed options. A deal killer in planning an imaginary "L" stop there might be the noise issue with the relative dense loft grouping around there, including the rental building on the west side of the tracks, and the other loft buildings surrounding on State and Wabash. But is a stop really that much noisier than an "L" car barreling at full speed? They could easily do some architectural tunnel like IIT.

What this also shows is how the city was scammed in acquiring the overpriced the lot at 16th & Wabash in order to build a proposed 16th & Wabash dog park. This Firestone business pulls in probably what, less then $1mil revenue per year? If Firestone owners were offered the same $10,000,000 that was paid for the city to buy the cross corner "dog lot", do you think they would have still built an automotive repair shop?

Anonymous said...

I went here Saturday to get new tires! They opened Friday, and are already pretty busy. The staff is super-nice, and I'm very happy with my tires!

Anonymous said...

It's nice to have a spot back in the South Loop to be able to take a car for repairs, etc. besides the Midas on Roosevelt! Glad it's back and open!

Anonymous said...

Did you forget about Goodyear?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that new Goodyear get all my business now.