A Greater South Loop Association meeting is scheduled for tomorrow from 9:00 am to 10:30 am. This will be held at the 1st district police community room at 1718 S. State street.
The agenda is as follows:
9:00 - 9:30am - Meet & greet your neighbors with coffee9:30 am - Presentation on proposed development near 900 S. Clark - community feedback requested!10:00am - Alderman Fioretti (2nd ward), Alderman Dowell (3rd ward) have been invited to provide updates.
Unfortunately we won't be there to cover this, however if anyone goes please come back and post a comment to give us the gist (or send an email to sloopin@gmail.com if you prefer).
Give all the recent ward map discussion it should be interesting to hear what Fioretti and Dowell have to say. It would also be good to hear what's going on with 900 S. Clark (last we heard it would be some type of retail building - which was old news).
(Hat tip: AB!)
21 comments:
Speaking of 900 S. Clark, I hear that AMLI is looking to build two 11-story rental buildings and two parking garages in the parking lot (SW corner of Clark/Polk) just north of the current AMLI building.
Given the fact that there is plenty of empty retail space near 900 S. Clark, I'm curios as to what they have in mind for this space. I'd have to imagine it would have to be some sort of big box that we don't currently have.
As for AMLI, I find myself being opposed to this due to the fact that they would be taking away a valuable parking lot. As potential parking spaces in the area dwindle, the costs of the remaining spots in the neighborhood will go up. Unfortunately, AMLI does not allow the general public to use its parking structures for daily or monthly parking.
I realize the invitation may have been before the remap, but this will fall into Will Burns' Ward in 2015. If he doesn't show for this, Im going to be operating under the assumption that the new 4th Ward's territory along the uninhabited lakefront was created solely as a route to grab TIF and tax money from the North end of the South Loop, Dearborn Park and Printers Row.
I want him there, but his priorities will be obvious if he is a no-show.
I was curious about the TIF issue too, since we have two TIF districts in (what was) the 2nd ward. However, I do not believe TIFs are appropriated based on ward boundaries, but rather on the boundaries of each particular TIF district. The only way TIF money can be taken from one TIF district and given to another is if the two districts are contiguous. So it's not like Burns can come in and loot the South Loop TIFs for the benefit of Kenwood.
Burns does not need to show up for anything until he or someone else gets voted in for 2015. I hear you and feel you, but until 2015 Ald Fioretti and Ald Dowell are the only ones we need to continue working with.
That's bs. If Burns wants us to elect him in 2015, he should show he cares about what this community will look like then. Yes, following letter of the law, he isn't responsible to show. But any decent leader who wants to be elected by a community will understand that they have a greater responsibility to be involved, to be seen and to show that they care about the issues of the people they are going to serve
Meeting Canceled
It wasn't cancelled
What happened at the meeting?
Sooo, presentation by Amli that went on for a long time, Seems like a nice development, high end rental, two towers, 11 stories, lots of green space and major improvements to the walkability (much bigger sidewalks, no curb cuts on Clark, small retail on the corner) No opposition from anyone attending. Dowell and Fioretti got up and briefly discussed the remap, Fioretti did not touch on it as much as I thought, I'm sure he wants to do a bit more gameplanning before he starts to fight it (which, from that meeting, he obviously will) He spoke about continuing to be devoted to the South Loop as whole, trying to alleviate concern his attention would be elsewhere. There is a new guy in charge of the Bash on Wabash , looked seemed pretty cool, and younger, so maybe he can turn that thing around. All in all, pretty good meeting.
This is a disgusting waste of vacant land so close to the city core. Where are the grand ideas of Daniel Burnham and Montgomery Ward? We need to demand better urban planning and better architecture. This city is the birthplace of the skyscraper! Let us not waste this land on weak ideas that are turning away small businesses by removing parking and creating only housing. An urban neighborhood is a complex mix of both day time workers and housing. Read up on history of neighborhoods and fight this desecration of our city!!
You should've come to the meeting.
@ Anon 8:12 AM
I couldn't agree more! City planners should read books like "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" to understand how to make modern urban areas lively. When friends from Europe come to visit, they love Chicago but are completely baffled by seeing vacant lots so close to the heart of the city. Walking from Roosevelt/Clark up to Printers row (past AMLI) is not a pretty sight, but I guess many people in the city go everywhere by car and never considers a walkable a lively neighbourhood important...
who cares anymore
I doubt that there's a city planner in the country who hasn't read Jane Jacobs. But a real city isn't like SimCity. Developers have to build things that make money for them over a reasonable time frame. Ours is not a society like Haussmann's Paris where the government can design the entire street and its buildings and then tell people to move into them.
I was out of town, otherwise I would have been at the meeting. I will be at Blackie's on Tuesday January 31st 5pm when the developer, I am told, has a meeting with the neighborhood to sell us his plans.
To the comment of "reasonable payback time" - that sure is an ambiguous comment. I hear crap like that from greedy developers all the time. I'd love to have this guy open his books and explain to us his cost of capital and return 'needs'. That would be a great conversation starter about his true long term commitment to this neighborhood.
YOU SHOULD GO TO SCOUT INSTEAD OF BLACKIES
Anon, January 24, 2012 3:22 PM,
It doesn't matter who the developer meets with, they have a worthless letter from the GSLA and that will stop any discussion of what you neighborhood people impacted by these projects needs or cares about. I thought we are represented by the South Loop Neighbors?
Well, best of luck I guess. Might be a good idea to have ready some specific things that you would like to see changed, or issues that you would like to see addressed. Sounding off about how the whole project is disgusting and a waste of vacant land without proposing a reasonable alternative is probably not going to get you very far.
I think we needs to have a 2nd or 3rd meeten about these buildengs. I don't care if it is at Blackies, Scouts or Dunken donuts but those 11 stories need to be changed around to be better then that.
We need to have some buildeng that makes a statements like the main library on State.
I thought the last year's bash on wabash was a good one so i hope the new guys as good as the old planners. Keep up the good work on the festivals cause that is what will seperates us from the other neighborshoods.
Hopefuly they can also keep investing in the maganet schools in the south loop so we can have more good schools and educated peeple. It will helps in the long term with less crimes.
Found a rough map of the new Amli development for the corner of Polk and Clark. Doesn't look too bad. Scroll down to the bottom of the thread to see the map.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?s=f498e105d370f7967c78de584011f08b&t=424434&page=110
Kev
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