Comments ( 15 )

• I agree. The last thing Lincoln Park needs is updating to some older buildings and a walkable grocery store. Much better use of the property would be another bar or restaurant.

  Who wants a shot!

• Not the alderman, who’s blocking a liquor license for the grocery.

• What’s so interesting to me, is that it’s the “former” alderman who’s trying to block this. Unfortunately some people can’t admit when things are over. You lost… you’re out… move on!

• This will be interesting to watch.

  The Lincoln NIMBY Legion is out in force for this.

  If they win their descendants shall sing of them for centuries:

  “Go tell the Trixies, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we downzone.”

  This will be interesting to watch. If they much this relatively small project up imagine how emboldened they will feel regarding the Children’s Hospital property.

• What I meant to say in between gulps of cheap wine and Obama Guinness is:

  If they MUCK UP this relatively small project, imagine how emboldened they will feel regarding the Children’s Hospital property.

• IrishPirate,

  I’ll bet you a good bottle of wine that the lawsuit’s a loser – and two bottles of wine that Oberman knows that.

• This whole escapade is so pathetic. It used to be a hospital, for crying out loud, replete with trucks, ambulances, traffic — the gamut.

  I love how “grocery store” is somehow translated as “ULTRA AWESOME WATER PARK WITH FREE BEER AND SUPER COOL FUNSLIDES!!!!” as if it’s going to attract people far and wide to Lincoln/Webster.

• boiztwn,

  If you want to know the depths of depravity of the people who live around this location, take a careful look at Oz Park.

  One thing you won’t see is any restroom facilities. The locals blocked them at the outset, as a way to deter anyone who wasn’t nearby from visiting the park.

  I condo-converted the building at 634-36 Webster, facing the park, and officed there for years back in the 80s. Saw more than one kid with wet pants, compliments, I believewd, of the lovely Lincoln Parkers.

  We’d frequently have food delivery trucks stop at our office offering to sell goodies they’d short-counted the hospital on.

  The neighbors are a very focused group – focused on keeping property values high by limiting supply in the area. They’re not irrational, just focused, selfish and cynical.

• Eh… I can’t really fault the “no restrooms” thing at Oz Park, to be quite honest. That stretch of Webster can be sketch at night, and other “parks” — like the one at Belden/Clark, labeled as a park on Google Maps — is consistently inhabited by the homeless, taking quite the advantage of the park benches installed by priors that wanted “something nice” for the ‘hood. Restrooms would be great, but even in ELP, benches can be an abused luxury.

  I agree with you on the nearby residential owners, though. Unfortch for them, they’re surrounded by many rental properties, and the owners of those buildings — and the renters and prospectives — are very receptive toward a new, walkable developments: especially a grocer. But since they’re not active donors/voters, it kind of gets lost in the flux of it all.

  But as one owner within this ward and nearby the site told me a few months ago, this LPH development fiasco was a “battle between millionaires and billionaires.” This person, by the by, was a long-term condo owner from the 70s, but not a SFH owner.

• boiztwn,

  Back in the late 70s I proposed benches along the southern part of Seminary and Kenmore in DePaul, on the city parkway in front of a 36-unit condo I developed along Armitage between those two streets.

  The neighbors objected violently, claiming the benches would be magnets for the homeless. After a heated neighborhood meeting the city denied me a permit for the benches.

  I built the benches anyway, and they lasted for about 6 years until I sold my last units and turned over complete control of the project to the condo association. The association promptly removed the benches.

  During their 6-year life span the benches were enjoyed by many of the neighbors, by me and my kids – and, to my recollection, not a single homeless person. The homeless would, however, sleep in the building’s hallways on cold winter nights. Anyone who complained to me about that got a frosty reception.

• “The homeless would, however, sleep in the building’s hallways on cold winter nights. Anyone who complained to me about that got a frosty reception.”

  That isn’t a pun. I hope. 😉

• boiztwn,

  It was a pun. I have no sympathy for people who complain about other people trying to stay alive and warm.

• Joe,

  I hope you’re right regarding the lawsuits chances.

  However, you know, that I know, that they know, that we know, that this is merely an early shot in the fight over the Children’s Hospital property.

  The new alderman there is a former federal prosecutor, with all the cheeriness and sweet disposition that entails.

  I hope sanity and good planning wins out. I have my doubts.

• IrishPirate,

  The alderman’s office hasn’t responded to a week-old request for an interview – no response whatever.

  I disclosed my relationships with one of the finalists for the Children’s site and the developer of the LPH site in my e-mail request.

  I’m beginning to suspect that the message from the alderman’s office is that anyone who might not agree with the alderman’s position is not even worth talking to. Welcome to Lincoln Park.

• What I find interesting is that this is probably the smallest of 3 big redevelopments on the horizon. Besides the LPH site, there is the Children’s site (as commented on already) and the A Finkl & Sons space along the river. Chicago Magazine had a good article about that site a few years ago. I wonder if the NIMBY’s will have as much to say on that already dense area, and whether it will stay within the industrial district or be let out so that it can become residences, more commercial space, or something like a park. I think that the NIMBY activity in the area is just heating up with this LPH project.