Developers Michael Supera and Richard Zisook have taken title of the old Lincoln Park Hospital at 550 W Webster Ave and plan to redevelop the site with 170 units of senior housing, 120 condos, and 33,000 square feet of retail, according to Crain’s Chicago Real Estate Daily.
The project’s original developer, Mark Hunt, had faced a $31 million foreclosure suit earlier this year. Supera and Zisook took controlling interest last month using a $25 million loan from Fifth Third Bank, Crain’s reports.
The developers hope to convert part of the 12-story hospital into condos, keeping most of the structure intact but replacing its facades with more traditional features. They will also build a new six-story building with senior housing and retail at the corner of Geneva Terrace and Webster Avenue and add retail to an existing parking garage on Webster.
Those plans aren’t flying with everyone. Commenter Andrew Robertson chimed in at the bottom of the article this afternoon: “This proposed redevelopment is very controversial and not supported by neighbors, 450 of whom signed a petition in opposition. Former Aldermen are also opposed.”
Joe Zekas caught up with Supera and Zisook at 600 North Lake Shore earlier this year. Learn more about them and their partner in that project, Buzz Ruttenberg, in the video below.
I’m really curious what Mr. Robertson and his NIMBY neighbors would rather see on that site.
No condo or senior residences development will generate anywhere near the traffic that the hospital that was once there did, so using traffic and density as an argument just doesn’t fly, in my book.
I’m waiting for the day when the city realizes how much of a hindrance these NIMBY demands are to the city’s financial well being.
I don’t know what the surrounding population is, but 450 could either be a tiny fraction or a small number. Former Aldermen, however, not so important.
Nonetheless, NIMBY’s are part of the city, just as the government is and have a right to their views. I can see retail traffic being an issue, that said, Lincoln is already a busy street, so I don’t see there being much noticeable change to traffic patterns.
I really don’t see the need for any retail there. With Childrens moving out down the street, there will be a lot of vacant storefronts to add to those already vacant plus the reduction in daytime demand. My guess is that they are adding it so that they can have b or c zoning or is it a pmd?
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Supera and Zisook already have specific tenants in mind for the retail. The parking garage is huge in this regard. A Fox & Obel, for example, might do very well in this location and would play well off the senior housing.
Thirty years ago the NIMBYs badly crippled the retail / commercial viability of Lincoln Ave when they killed Childrens Hospital’s proposal to have retail on the front of the parking garage in the 2300 block of Lincoln. Let’s see what they can do this time around.
Wow, NIMBY’s 30 years ago?
NIMBYism: screwing Chicago since the 70’s
Salem had witch hunters. Berlin had brownshirts. Chicago has nimbys. A segment of the population will always be ignorant, but I’m skeptical about the number of alleged petitioners being “450”. We don’t know how the petition was phrased, and we don’t know anything about the alleged signors. Most acitvists are liars.
“NIMBYs badly crippled the retail / commercial viability of Lincoln Ave when they killed Childrens Hospital’s proposal to have retail on the front of the parking garage in the 2300 block of Lincoln. Let’s see what they can do this time around.”
What about the stretches of empty storefronts on lincoln, halsted, and clark in the 2000-3000 address range? I dont mind retail, but if there’s no demand, it shouldnt be built.
If there really is no possible future demand then they wouldn’t add retail space they couldn’t lease. And there’s no point in comparing old and smaller existing spaces to the newer, larger spaces retailers esp big box stores want.that would be part of this development.
Alan,
If the NIMBYs didn’t fight tooth and nail against any multi-family unit density out of the sheer horror of the thought of people living in the city, maybe there would be a large enough surrounding population to support more retail.
Add a few hundred new residents on the site of the hospital, and the retail picture changes.
Remember of course that the Hospital itself generated some retail demand in the area between employees, patients/families, and so on. As the hospitals in Lincoln Park close up shop one by one (Columbus, LP, and soon Children’s) is it any surprise that retail demand dries up as well when the NIMBY brownshirts show up to demand nothing but lowest-density townhouses and maximum parking for all developments?
You guys are going to hate my next comment, oh yes, you are going to hate this comment. It’s the NIMBY’s who made Old Town and Lincoln Park what they are today by stopping four plus one construction – had the whole neighborhood been built up with them it wouldn’t be as charming or exclusive or as hard to find a place there.
Overall the city would have really benefited from being built up under their post war zoning (i.e. about double the density that we have) and of course, found the funding for their subway expansion plans (under Archer to Midway, under Belmont west, etc etc) but that’s another story, as it didn’t happen.
I think these plans are great with the exception of the additional 3 floors added to the tower. These plans will cause way less traffic than an operating hospital. It will also change a hideous looking building to a great looking building.
SheridanB,
Dozens of 4+1s did get built in Lincoln Park.
I’d agree that NIMBYs, on the whole, have been destructive to Lincoln Park and to the more viable parts of the city. LP and Lake View, especially near the park, should have been built out to a much higher density.
Far more damage, however, has been done to the city by its aldermanic NIMWWITs (not in my ward while I’m there) and by mayors who have been hostile to outside developers and callous about the fate of most of the city.
Helen Shiller is merely the poster child for that breed of alderman. There are, sadly, dozens more just like her throughout the city.
Joe Zekas is right. NIMBYs would be a mere irrelevant freak show if they weren’t being empowered by the NIMWWITs. What Chicago really needs is a professional planning process and elimination of aldermanic prerogative. In any other town, an area populated with 60,000 would have boards and committees of multiple parties regulating zoning. In Chicago, it’s dealt with by a single nimwit.
Dozens, yes, but hundreds the further north you go. Old Town has almost none, more in Lakeview and Edgewater and tons in Rogers Park. And all of them them less desirable than Old Town in particular. I’d argue though, that a lot of 4+1’s have better unit planning than a lot of new construction. One of my friends threatens to write an article about this, maybe I’ll hound him to prove this.
NIMBYism isn’t bad, it’s when they can spot zone and get elected officials to jury-rig zoning to small scale concerns. I’d say that Mary Ann Smith is the champion of this, letting the block clubs (which only represent a small fraction of her constituents, let alone all homeowners) dictate her legislative agenda rather than good planning. Look at the down-zoning of Broadway and Sheridan as prime examples of this.
Retail struggles on Lincoln and also on Clark because there is no anchor. A grocery store or pharmacy would give that stretch of Lincoln the anchor it needs and bring people into the area from Old Town and De Paul, which, in turn, would help the mom-and-pops on Lincoln.
This tower is going to be too tall at 15 storys. 5 storys should be the max they should be able to have for a residential tower in the Mid-North Historic District. The astonishing amount of retail in this plan is a threat to the few stores in the area that are surviving and will turn this quaint historic area into a busy retail hub. No one living in this area wants a giant residential tower that is out of place among the two and three story buildings of this quiet neighborhood. They should do like they did with Augustana Hospital and tear it down and build single-family home and low-rise condos.
There is also a big difference in old town between the Old Town Triangle in Lincoln Park north of North Ave. and Old Town Between North and Division West of Clark and East of Larrabee. North is way more nice and exclusive than Near North Old Town.
Hey Boyee, you leave me speechless…
Words can’t describe just how ridiculous your post just sounded.
If you want quiet then move to the suburbs. My God, you people are like maggots, just like the unions. Chicago now has 2 problems that threatens its future: NIMBY’s and Unions–both of ya will suck this city down to the bone.
Oh, and that building that’s “too tall” already is in existence, genius…
Today was the meeting, let me guess how it went:
NIMBY’s b$#ched and moaned till they were blue, and the developer will cancel the project and, without requiring community approval, redevelop the property into medical offices.
Great job, NIMBY’s! So instead of your unrealistic fantasy of having peace and quiet in a major, bustling city, you blew your opportunity to bargain with the developer and get a really nice project that enhances your property values. Instead, you’ll live next to a medical office facliity in perpetuity, and we all know that commercial space always generates more traffic than residential.
You can thank your stubborn egos once again. Like I said, just like the unions…
Well, here it is, panning out just as I predicted:
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/lincoln.park.hospital.2.1421156.html
I can’t wait till Boyee and his NIMBY camp bullheadedly get themselves stuck with a medical office building and parking garage (with accompanied traffic) for another generation, all because they couldn’t learn to compromise. Love it!
The neighbors of Mid-North are not against development they are against a development that includes a 12 story condo high rise in a neighborhood of 3-4 story buildings and lots of retail in a quiet neighborhood that is not under served and has plenty of retail a few blocks away. Adding all this retail will force even more shops out of business. Making condos or rowhouses or single family homes that are 5 or less stories would make them just as much money because they could charge more for lower density housing and it would fit in with the surrounding area.
Boyee, if you’re genuinely worried about the well-being of retailers in your neighborhood, you’ll realize that a 12 story building will give them far more customers than anything you are proposing will.
But you’re not. None of your actions show any evidence of concern for anything except your true desire to make your neighborhood as suburban as possible, and to keep people out. I call NIMBY on that one, and so does everybody else besides your little core group who claims to be opposed to this project.