A rash of comments on our post about the new condos under construction at 2200 W Madison got us thinking about the Near West Side neighborhood, especially the stretch of Madison Street between Damen and Western Avenues. After a stroll in the area, I’d say that strip is nowhere near as barren and hopeless as commenter “Odujoko” suggests. Sure, there are several vacant lots (three, by my count), but to my eye the block is dominated by new construction. New developments at 2200 West Madison Estates, West Village Homes, One South Leavitt and Two South Leavitt line the street.
Steve Barton, a sales associate with New West Realty who’s selling West Village Homes, says there’s healthy competition between these projects. Even though he’s lost a few buyers as a result, he says he’s glad overall of the influx of new construction because it reassures buyers that the area is on the rise economically.
It’s worth noting also that the surrounding blocks look neat and tidy and stocked with condo projects – although the corner of Madison and Western appears to be in mid-flip. The spanking new Walgreens on the northeast corner and the lot on the southeast corner that will soon be home to a shopping center cut a striking contrast to a ragged looking sandwich shop and a boarded up building. But overall gentrification is in the air, perhaps a sign that the redevelopment of the area that began 10 years ago when the the Chicago Housing Authority tore down its high rises and replaced them with the low-rise West Village Haven development has made a lasting imprint.
The development of the shopping center at Madison and Western is the most horrible insult to Chicago’s urban fabric. If that’s how the idiots behind the Dept of Planning and Devt view the commercial redevelopment of an urban neighborhood, then I want to have no part of it. I will never visit that area as long as ugly, strip-style development predominates.
I’m fed up with such low-quality development in Chicago’s urban neighborhoods. There’s a strip-mall ordinance for a reason, but people aren’t adhering to it. PUT THE BUILDING ENTRANCES AT THE DAMN SIDEWALK AND PUT THE PARKING IN THE REAR OR UNDERGROUND!! FOR THE FRIGGING LOVE OF GOD IT’S NOT THAT COMPICATED!! STOP MAKING THE CITY LOOK LIKE A SUBURB PLEASE.
Thank you. I’ll take the north side and Hyde Park for now. Let the ghetto get turned into seas of parking for all I care (or the city cares)
tup,
Chicago’s urban fabric? Have you been to Madison and Western? I don’t think so.
In fact, have you ever been anywhere on Western Ave? It’s tough to think of any piece of it as part of your idealized “urban fabric.” It’s already a gigantic strip mall, much of it consisting of screaming used car lots.
Have you ever stopped to consider the possibility that the retailers who build these things know a thing or two about what it takes for them to succeed in this type of neighborhood?
The urban fabric’s composed of many strands, and auto-oriented retail is one of those strands because it’s responsive to people’s needs.
I suspect that retail development that met your standards would quickly wither and die in this location – would you prefer that to this?
BTW, I missed how the strip mall ordinance applies to this development, and am looking forward to hearing your carefully reasoned arguments for that proposition.
If Chicago followed the formula for “what it takes to succeed” everywhere, then the strip mall ordinance would never have come to existence.
Strip malls, lots of parking, everybody is happy, and businesses thrive.
I’m not against parking, I’m against the poorly chosen aesthetic. I’d like to see you prove to me that placing parking behind a building is somehow detrimental to a business.
But then again, you can’t. It’s not about aesthetics to you–it’s all about letting the market guide everything for people like you. There were naysayers when the SM ordinance was first proposed, saying that it would hamper or discourage businesses. But it never did.
You’re wrong about the assumption that we should trust retailers when it comes to aesthetics. We are talking about 2 different things. Perhaps if you got out of the suburbs you’d understand that.
Oh, and I do know how that intersection looks. I have seen all of Chicago–everything.
I don’t care how much the Dominick’s at Roosevelt and Canal has ‘helped’ that area. I don’t care how much it is touted.
It is a failure of urban planning in every sense that I can possible think of. It could have EASILY served the role it plays right now in revitalizing the area around it but being designed 100 times better, making it more friendly to bus riders and pedestrians.
tup,
Geez, when I was developing in the city my buyers thought I had some concern for aesthetics, and so did my architects. I put my wallet behind advancing these concerns rather than just my mouth. Do you ever tire of setting up straw men and poking at them?
I repeat my contention that you simply don’t have a grip on Western Ave. If you did, you couldn’t talk so blithely about aesthetics.
How are you seeing all of Chicago? On Google Earth? I see it on the ground. Every day. All over Chicago. Have been doing that for decades. Have probably walked more of Chicago block by block than most people have driven.
Did I say we should simply trust retailers as to aesthetics? I don’t think that’s a fair reading of the question I posed.
In any event, I’m still awaiting your reasoned exposition of how this development violates the strip mall ordinance. Cite me chapter and verse from the ordinance in the context of this development and its context on Western Ave. I don’t think you can do that.
It seems to me that you’re just making stuff up, without regard to the facts on the ground. If I’m wrong about that, I’ll admit it in response to your reasoned case.
Western Avenue is an auto-oriented corridor, granted.
I know that the Strip Mall ordinance calls for retail developments to be built up to the lot line if the existing development around it does so as well. Technically, this shopping center is not in violation of the ordinance.
A + B = C, Zekas style arguing. That’s what you want, after all.
Given that logic, in all parts of Chicago that aren’t already devoloped in an urban fashion, developers are given carte blanche to build the usual and easy-to-build strip centers that pock-mark 99% of the American urbanscape. In other words, new urban places cannot be built unless the developer happens to want it, leaving the city out in the cold in the decision-making.
However, there is a greater principle behind the SM Ordinance, and I think it is this theme of promoting walkable streetscapes that is being violated by interpreting it too literally. Madison and Western, while barren, isn’t the same as Madison and Cicero.
If the city has any vision at all (which Chicago luckily does) it may perhaps view the area around Madison and Western eventually becoming a walkable, urban environment some decades from now. This is opposed to Madison and Cicero, which is largely modeled after suburbia and will likely remain so for quite some time. What goes up in that area (Madison and Western) now sets the standard for retail development in the future.
The city should move towards urbanizing its retail strips, even its newer ones, esp those that are closer to the city’s core. Making business strips more ped-friendly and aesthetically pleasing (streetwalls of stores) can only benefit these districts in the future, even while providing the parking retailers need. Sorry, but I don’t see the big inconvenience in putting parking in the rear, or even temporarily on the sides of buildings. The city can easily expect this of developers and it should.
There is no reason why the city couldn’t have done a better job promoting that here. The new strip mall planned at Madison and Western should have been set back from Western with parking (bowing to Western’s auto-oriented uses) while being flush with Madison, which is supposed to evolve eventually into a commercial ‘main street’ of this west side neighborhood.
Intead, a big swath of surface parking will set Aldi and it’s neighboring stores back from Madison. People riding the bus on Madison will have to trek over the swath of pavement for no good reason at all. Naturally everyone will drive there, and Chicago will have missed another easy opportunity to tip its hat to pedestrians and transit users, even if they are the minority.
It is this kind of crappy planning that scares me, and although it does not directly violate the SM ordinance it brings back to the forefront the principles and problems that brought it into existence. I truly hope that development elsewhere along Madison is more in tune with what Chicago is trying to evolve into: a green city that promotes transit and walking while continuing to accommodate the realities of the automobile.
Joe Zekas said:
“Geez, when I was developing in the city my buyers thought I had some concern for aesthetics, and so did my architects. I put my wallet behind advancing these concerns rather than just my mouth. Do you ever tire of setting up straw men and poking at them?”
^ What, so you’re criticizing me because I’m not a real estate developer and haven’t built shopping centers? My opinion isn’t legit until I take out a loan to build the kind of developments that I believe in? I have to put my money where my mouth is or shut up? Ouch!
You have seriously got to be kidding.
tup,
As Ronnie Reagan said to what’s-his-name, “there you go again.” You’re reading me unfairly and setting up a straw man. I made no statement or inference about what’s required of anyone else.
I was simply reacting to your (I think) unwarranted assumption that I have no concern for aesthetic values by pointing out that I’ve done more than talk about them.
That’s all I said ,and it can’t be stretchehd to infer that anyone needs to do what I’ve done to speak with authority. It’s obvious that you speak with passion and authority, and I’m not questioning that.
I’m glad to see that you’ve backed off your original position that this development violated the ordinance.
I am, by the way, in complete agreement with you about the goals of the ordinance, but all of its guidelines are simply not appropriate in every context, and many of them were adhered to by this development.
Ah, well then it’s good to know that we agree on this in principle. And no, my focus here wasn’t to single you out. I have no idea what kinds of developments you’ve been involved in, and if I implied something of the sort then I was mistaken.
Frankly, I’m less concerned about the strip-mall issue than about what’s going on with that big hulkin’ building at Madison & Western that’s been “in renovation” for a long, long time. What’s it going to be? Apartments? Condos? Offices? Stores? Some combination? Until that monster gets tamed, nothing’s going to happen to “improve” that neighborhood’s image.
At this point, I think that strip of Madison near the UC needs a sports-themed eating establishment or two (e.g., a bar and grill). Or we could just continue to pretend that there isn’t a major Chicago entertainment destination right on Madison. The several acres of surface parking around the UC look nice and all, but I’m just saying….
W.S.
don’t forget the Billy Goat, which is, unfortunately too far to the east.
And, I agree with U.P. about the strip malls. If the rest of the neighborhood is to be like it’s “seed” then that seed should not be planted.
Joe:
I don’t know what your interest in this website is, whether you are an owner or just a contributor. However, you seem intent on picking fights with the very people who bother to post comments to your articles. You insulted my comments and now you’re picking an argument with urban politician. We’re your bread and butter, baby, and if you keep insulting us….we’ll soon forego this website for others.
odujoko,
I’m a New Jersey guy at heart, and too easily assume that others are comfortable with that style.
If I’ve offended you, you have my apology.
It looks like that near by Madison and Western, They have new Condos. Also, I was just driving by that area and saw 2200 West Madison development by D’Aprile Realty (never heard that name before). I remember from other post that starting condos price would be around 299,000 but looking at the current market situation. I think they would be having really hard time selling Condos at 299,000 in this type of market in that area. Which is part of the gentrification.