The Spire designed by international architect Santiago Calatrava received the "Go Ahead" by the Chicago city fathers(Mayor Daley pulling out all stops for the Olympic bid?) in 2007. This slim corkscrew pencil will stretch 2,000 feet into the Chicago skyline. Cranes and huge digging machines are already toiling at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, its future site. The billion dollar question is whether sufficient support from the local and world real estate market will make the 150 story residential condominium a reality. Blair Kamins, the renowned architecture critic notes in the Chicago Tribune,"Beyond question, however, is the quality of Calatrava's recent refinements, which make his dynamic tower seem more like a real work of architecture than a dazzling cartoon. Next year will likely tell whether the Spire gets built despite the crumbling real estate market -- or whether it joins Eliel Saarinen's second-place entry in the Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922 as one of Chicago's great unbuilt designs."