March 20, 2009. The Chicago Riverwalk is not even finished up to the State Street Bridge. There is interest in extending it to Lake Street someday, and Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) is looking for money to do that, but there are no immediate plans.

March 28, 2013. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood travels to Chicago to announce the city would be invited to apply for federal financing to help complete the Riverwalk. (Left) 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly (center) watches as Mayor Emanuel (left) introduces LaHood (right) at a news conference in River North.

June 13, 2013. Mayor Emanuel announces Chicago has been approved for a $98.66 million loan to keep building the Riverwalk. The money will come from the Transportation Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act. The Chicago Riverwalk is its first project. The loan, tapped only as needed, has a fixed interest rate of 3.34 percent and is repaid in equal installments every January 1 and July 1 through January 1, 2048. The city must spend the money first, then apply to get reimbursed.

(Above) Map of proposed Riverwalk expansion, from State Street at far right to just past Wolf Point at far left.

September 2013. As construction bids come in, the plan is to start building the first three blocks from State to LaSalle while planners design the last three blocks, from LaSalle to Lake. Ross Barney Architects, the firm that designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a stretch of the Riverwalk that passes under Wabash Avenue, is the architect of this second phase of construction, collaborating with Sasaki Associates, Alfred Benesch & Company, Jacobs/Ryan Associates, and Schuler Shook Inc.

November 8, 2013. Walsh Construction is selected to build from State to LaSalle. CDOT will pay the Chicago-based company $43 million from the loan it got in June from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

January 17, 2014. Access to the Riverwalk is closed west of State Street and construction begins. (Left) An excavator, west of Clark Street, scoops loose concrete from the base of a support holding up Wacker Drive, for deposit on the pile behind it. The work will get more challenging. Eventually, they will demolish the arch over a ComEd equipment room between Clark and LaSalle.

March 18, 2014. The city holds a meeting for organizations interested in responding to a Request For Qualifications that will be used to help select a Riverwalk manager, which the city hopes to hire by the end of the year. Working for the city’s Department of Fleet and Facility Management, or “2FM” for short, the Riverwalk manager will be responsible for planning, maintenance, and day-to-day operations. No concessions have been selected yet but “all options are on the table,” reads the RFQ. (Right) Workers guide steel piles into place near State Street.

April 25, 2014. Work resumes after a lull of at least a few days after a hydraulic hammer – that pounds steel piles into the ground – broke down. A replacement hammer is delivered to the construction site and put into operation.

May 16, 2014. Fine particles of sand and cement are responsible for a milky green Chicago River, seen (above) east of Clark Street. The particles are from concrete demolition. The water is contained between the old river wall and steel sheets that have been pounded into the riverbed in recent months. As the area is filled with new concrete, the water will be pumped through filters to remove the particles. (Left) A close view of a pile driver pushing a steel sheet into the riverbed. Sheet piles are long sections of steel beams that connect to each other to form a continuous wall. Not to be confused with “H-Piles,” 75-foot vertical beams driven into the ground for support that when connected, often look like the letter “H.”

June 6, 2014. The first Riverwalk caisson is pounded into the planet on a Friday afternoon. It went down on the west side of the Dearborn Street Bridge, plunging through water and soil to bedrock. Steel cylinders, 75 feet deep, six feet in diameter, and open at each end will be pounded into the riverbed. After the soil is drilled out, rebar is lowered into each caisson, which is then filled with concrete. The rebar, used to reinforce the concrete, will be in the form of a steel cage running the full height of the caisson. Divers will be working in the river to remove debris and clear the way for the caisson. (Right) Workers inspect a caisson as it is drilled west of the Dearborn Street Bridge.

(Above) On the Riverwalk west of State Street, a construction worker uses hand signals to guide a load of crushed stone to a spot on the river where it is then dumped. He has used the white stick on the ground nearby to measure the depth of the stone so that it can be distributed evenly. As this area is backfilled with aggregate, water mixed with old concrete is filtered and returned to the river.

(Below) Aerial view of Riverwalk construction west of Dearborn Street on June 13, 2014. Wacker Drive at upper left.

June 28, 2014. Workers are now backfilling with crushed stone the areas between the old river wall and the new Riverwalk. As the aggregate goes in, water comes out. It will be filtered and returned to the Chicago River. As they extend the Riverwalk toward LaSalle, construction crews will continue to back-fill with crushed stone the 25-foot-wide gap between the old and new river walls.

(Left) Concrete is pumped from a truck on Wacker Drive to a caisson below the Dearborn Street Bridge.

July 1, 2014. Following heavy rain, the Riverwalk is so flooded, the Chicago River is higher than the steel sheet pile that forms the new river wall. Work continues the next day but CDOT will have to make up for lost time. (Right) More flooding on August 22. Photo by Lynn Becker.

July 10, 2014. A floating construction barge, 50 feet long by 20 feet wide, takes on water early on a Thursday morning and slowly sinks to the bottom of the Chicago River, east of the LaSalle Street Bridge. There are no injuries. It is unknown why exactly the barge sank or what equipment was lost. Air will be pumped into the barge to help raise it, a process that could take a few days.

July 16, 2014. A telescopic boom lift – some call it a cherry picker – weighing 21,800 pounds and costing $104,000 is recovered from the Chicago River. The lift, made by JLG Industries, Inc., was on the construction barge that sank on July 10. Working in an area in the southeast corner of the bridge, a diver attached two cables to the lift, which a crane then used to hoist it out of the water. Caked in mud and oozing oil, the lift emerged basket-first at 4:45 p.m. and was carried by the crane over to a barge used to haul construction material. The barge that sank is still at the bottom of the river. At about this time, a surprise encounter with telephone equipment buried beneath the Chicago River causes a delay and requires the State Street Bridge to be closed a second time. A contractor, drilling a hole in the riverbed below the south leaf of the bridge, into which a caisson was going to be lowered, came in contact with an unmarked conduit containing telephone cables. There was no significant damage but another hole had to be be drilled several feet away.

July 21, 2014. Looking beat but remarkably undestroyed, a construction barge that sank in the Chicago River on July 10 is brought back to the surface. By pumping air in and water out, a salvage crew from Global Infrastructure recovers the barge at about 6:50 p.m. It had been underwater for eleven days.

July 26, 2014. With the new steel river walls mostly in place, the focus of work on the Riverwalk has turned to concrete. The project’s largest concrete pour to date is completed. 700 cubic yards of concrete are poured between Dearborn Street and LaSalle Street. That much concrete, assuming eight-foot ceilings, would fill a 2,360 square foot house.

August 20, 2014. 28 people, who have responded to a request for proposals to manage the Riverwalk, attend a pre-submittal conference at City Hall. They include representatives of Jones Lang LaSalle, Related Midwest, U.S. Equities Realty, and MB Real Estate Services.

August 22, 2014. More than four inches of rain fall at Midway Airport. The Riverwalk is “partially flooded,” according to CDOT, although most of it appears to be underwater. The State Street Bridge will stay up two more days. The level of the Chicago River, raised by heavy rain over the past two days, is too high for workers to complete installation of a caisson under the bridge.

(Right) Caisson drilling from a construction barge east of the State Street Bridge. Bores in lower frame, caisson at right.

September 2, 2014. The first of the new Riverwalk’s under-bridge walkways is delivered. This 152-foot-long rectangular piece of concrete (above) was cast off-site and delivered to the Dearborn Street Bridge. It will fit under the south leaf of the bridge and connect the Riverwalk between stretches called Marina Plaza and The Cove. (Left) On the east side of the Dearborn Street Bridge, Walsh Construction workers weld a caisson to the pre-cast walkway. September 29, 2014. The stretch of Riverwalk between State and Clark Streets will be “substantially complete” by mid-December, says CDOT. A spokesperson acknowledges delays, believed to have put construction as many as eight weeks behind schedule at one point, but says the entire project will be done on time.

(Right) Under-bridge section beneath Dearborn Street (CDOT photo).

(Left) Wooden forms west of Clark Street on October 20, 2014.

December 7, 2014. Most of the larger structural work between State and Clark Streets is finished. Workers are now focused on smaller architectural elements. Concrete work continues west of Clark Street – but east of Clark, they are installing parts such as walkways and the granite that will decorate vertical surfaces along the Riverwalk.

(Right) Workers assemble windows in tenant spaces east of Dearborn Street.

January 6, 2015. With the opening of three blocks of the Riverwalk just months away, the city has not yet decided who the operator will be, but MB Real Estate Services, LLC, has a sporting chance. The Chicago-based real estate company is the only bidder.

The city is free to reject the bid and issue another request for proposals. Whoever is selected will take over for the Chicago Park District, which has been managing retail vendors on the completed Riverwalk between Lake Shore Drive and State Street since 2009. Five vendors that were on the Riverwalk east of Wabash Avenue last year will have to get a short-term concession license from the city to operate again in 2015. While the city says the new operator is welcome to sign existing vendors, “new agreements are required and expected to be economically advantageous.”

January 17, 2015. Construction crews are working on planters, where trees will go, and pavers on which people will walk. They are also working on the granite walls of Riverwalk rooms between State and Clark Streets. In the arcade spaces under Wacker Drive, where restaurants or other retail vendors will set up shop, doors and windows are being installed. Between Clark and LaSalle Streets, workers are building stairs and ramps.

February 10, 2015. About 20 prospective concessionaires use their imaginations during the first public tour of the Riverwalk. CDOT showed business owners and managers the new interior arcade spaces between Clark and State Streets and existing spaces east of State Street.

The group included representatives of Goose Island Brewery, Chicago Electric Boat Company, Urban Kayaks, and a bicycle tour business.

March 9, 2015. Proposals are due and the city is selecting the first operators of concessions on the Riverwalk. Dick’s Last Resort, which overlooks the Chicago River from the southwest corner of Marina City, has submitted a proposal for a bistro that will sell Belgian fries and beer.

(Right) After months of building forms and laying out rebar, the first concrete is poured onto the slope at River Theater east of Clark Street on March 10, 2015.

March 12, 2015. The city confirms the three-day weekend of May 23-25 is when the Riverwalk will partially open to the public. Most of the construction should be finished by the end of March, according to CDOT. After that, crews will work on landscaping and other finishes. March 24, 2015. With only one bid received to operate the Riverwalk, the city decides to manage day-to-day operations itself, at least until the end of this year. No decisions have been made on who will operate the concessions. April 15, 2015. Red maple trees (left) arrive on the Riverwalk and are planted the next day. New lighting has been installed between State and Dearborn Streets. Most of the pre-cast concrete and granite elements between State and Clark have been installed.