In Lincoln Park, new construction on almost any scale, large or small, is a process that’s akin to a multi-act multi-scene drama.
The process, like all primitive forms of theater, involves highly ritualized dancing and storytelling. Audience participation and aggressive stereotyping make for a good show – if it’s one you haven’t seen too often before.
The next scene in the long-running saga of redeveloping the Children’s Memorial Hospital site, pictured above, will begin next Thursday, November 21, at 6:30 p.m. at the DePaul Student Center, 2250 N Sheffield.
Alderman Michele Smith’s email heralding the event had the imperious tone that seems to come so frighteningly easily to Chicago politicians:
I am immediately directing McCaffery Interests, the developer of the Children’s site, to prepare a plan that responds to the community’s concerns raised about their earlier plan, chief among them height and density. We have given them a deadline, November 21st, to bring new plans to the community and have scheduled a community meeting for the presentation of these plans.
Yep, Lincoln Park NIMBY’s are simply the worst of their breed.
I imagine one would have to have world-class patience and a very steady demeanor in getting anywhere with them. What seems to end up winning in the end is persistence without fail. Only in a neighborhood with virtually no homes less than a million dollars would such efforts yield reward adequate to justify the travails.
But it’s certainly not an ordeal for faint of heart
Assuming McCaffrey knew CMH would be a challenge and had the patience, and further assuming they have a large portfolio and are fully area of market cycles… Anyone else think they should tuck their tails and run from this one? By all accounts coming to market in 24-36 months is bleak indeed as we sit on the precipice of insolvency as a City and as a Nation.
Glass Houses everyone may as well pack up and move to Canada.