Keeping with the last post’s train of thought, here are some other development proposals we’ve seen in the news in recent weeks. It seems like a lot of developers are talking about their ideas again, although no one seems too sure when anything will actually move forward.
- Market Common South Shore: US Steel and McCaffery Interests want to build more than 17,000 homes, 1 million square feet of retail space, and a marina at the old South Works steel mill site in South Chicago. The city is considering forming a TIF district for the project’s first phase.
- Hairpin Lofts: The Community Development Commission has approved the conversion of the Morris B. Sachs building at Diversey, Kimball, and Milwaukee avenues in Logan Square into 28 residential lofts, a 7,000 square-foot community arts center, and four ground-level retail spaces, all designed by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture. The development will be funded partially by TIF dollars.
- Lincoln Park Hospital: Developers Michael Supera and Richard Zisook have taken title of the old hospital at 550 W Webster Ave in Lincoln Park and hope to redevelop the site with 170 units of senior housing, 120 condos, and 33,000 square feet of retail.
- Lathrop Homes: CHA has put out an all-call for developer qualifications for the redevelopment of the Lathrop Homes site at Damen and Diversey avenues in Lincoln Park. The 35-acre complex will be converted into new and rehabbed low-income, affordable, and market-rate homes following new LEED for Neighborhood Development guidelines.
- Randolph Tower: Village Green Companies hopes to receive TIF money and tax-free bonds for the renovation of the old Steuben Club Building at 188 W Randolph St in the Loop. The 45-story building could be converted into more than 300 apartments.
- Harper Court: The city and the University of Chicago have tapped Danville-based Vermillion Development to demolish and redevelop the Harper Court shopping center in Hyde Park. The new mixed-use development will have retail and office spaces and a hotel.
- The Gateway at Washington Park: New South Partners, Team4, and FitzGerald Associates are in the early stages of planning a mixed-use, transit oriented development with 1.3 million square feet of office, retail and residential space on land bounded by 54th Street, 55th Place, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Prairie Avenue in Washington Park.
The Gateway at Washington Park would hopefully be a catalyst for reviving Garfield Blvd. and the homes that are left there. What happened to the project that was proposed north of the park (on Cottage Grove I believe)? That was supposed to have a good deal of retail also as I recall.
I think the plummeting demand for retail space happened to it.
No offense to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, but they really need to stop naming streets in every city’s black neighborhood after him, and perhaps even go back to renaming those streets after their original names.
I don’t think very many, if any, streets named after him have run through anything other than complete ghettos. And what are the chances you’re going to get white investors to build office/retail complexes on a ‘Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard’?
Sad, sad reality, but it reflects poorly on a truly great man’s legacy.
^ That above post was in reference to the pie in the sky ‘Gateway at Washington Park’ development, by the way..
As usual, tup, you don’t let facts get in the way of your prejudices.
McCormick Place is a ghetto? The Hyatt didn’t locate on King Drive (not Boulevard) because of its name?
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and the area surrounding King Dr there, is a ghetto? Not the last time I was there.
King Blvd in Portland OR is in the ghetto? You better head over to Wikipedia and update the entry. And Denver also?
I went to law school in Madison and have been back there repeatedly since. Worked in the State Capitol one summer – don’t remember it being in the middle of a ghetto.
Ames, IA, at 2.6% black, has a ghetto? It does have a Martin Luther King Dr, so thanks to you we’ll all know where to find it. I could, obviously, go on at length.
Do you get out and about this great, rich, restless and increasingly unprejudiced country very much? Try it – I think you’ll meet many people who find your comment offensive to Dr King’s memory, and to the people who’ve honored it by naming streets, especially this close to his birthday.
Joe,
Spare me your over-contrived attempt at outrage. You and I both know that MLK stood for integration, not gentrification.
Places of town that have a MLK running through them are either suffering from the ills that have long plagued black America, or are undergoing gentrification, thus leaving out black America.
Something along the lines of Hyde Park is what comes to mind when thinking of King’s dream, and that’s an appropriate place to have a street with his moniker.
But you and I know that most communities bearing his name have manifested little that has to do with his legacy.
If King’s dream were realized no one would be taking race into account in determining an “appropriate place” to bear his name.
I think South Park has other connotations now, that people might not want to revisit.