Looks like the South Loop retail complex at Jefferson/Taylor that had previously received approval to break ground will not be coming to fruition. For sale signs just popped up on the existing structure late last week.As a reminder, we posted about this potential development back in 2016 but it hasn't had any movement - clearly.
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My husband and I were in Edgewater yesterday and we saw a place called Gordo’s. It had the same signage as the Gordo’s in the Sloop and it was right next to a Flaco’s. We stopped in and talked to the owner(?). He said they just opened that one about a week ago in Edgewater. They make the ice cream bars in the basement of the South Loop Gordo’s. He said they plan to open Hax before the Lit Fest and open Gordo’s there shortly thereafter. The interesting thing was he said that the owners of the parking lot just to the south of them, will soon be breaking ground and building a space with retail on the street level and their own personal residence above it. He said they (Hax) had just put in a window facing the parking lot when they found this out so now the window will of course be covered up.
We didn’t have one, but the Gordo’s ice cream bars looked delicious!
National Teachers Academy could be converted to a neighborhood high school once the new South Loop Elementary School is built nearby, top CPS officials said Tuesday.
Forrest Claypool and Janice Jackson, respectively the chief executive and education officers at Chicago Public Schools, announced a series of community hearings this summer regarding the future of the academy at 55 W. Cermak Road in a letter to parents.
While reiterating CPS' stance to "strengthen" the academy "so that it continues to effectively serve the community," Claypool and Jackson wrote that some have suggested the academy be converted to a new neighborhood high school serving the South Loop as well as parts of Bridgeport, Bronzeville and Chinatown once the new South Loop Elementary School opens in 2019 a few blocks away at 1601 S. Dearborn St.
The long-discussed redevelopment of Chicago’s former Harold L. Ickes Homes public housing project has officially started the process of navigating the city’s approval process. An ordinance to rezone the vacant 11.3-acre parcel owned by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) at the border of the South Loop and Bronzeville neighborhoods was filed a few week back. While the plan must still pass the Plan Commission and City Council to take effect, the 123-page document provides insight regarding Ickes’ future.
According to the plan, the area bounded by State Street, Federal Avenue, Cermak, and 25th Street will see its patchwork of zoning designations changed to a uniform DX-3 Downtown Mixed Use classification and incorporated into a Planned Development (PD). The parcel will be divided into five distinct subareas to be redeveloped in three phases over the coming years.
While previous reports mentioned a total of 887 residential dwellings, the allowable unit count has since grown to 972 to spread across a mix of townhomes, six-flats, and a high-rise at the southwest corner of Cermak and State. The transit-oriented plan also calls for 75,000 square feet of retail, dedicated open space, and at least 270 on-site parking spaces.
Well you heard it here first. Jimmy Green's is saying thank you & goodbye this Saturday night – May 13, 2017. It has been an honor to be part of this truly vital neighborhood. We have welcomed dozens of sports greats including most of the '85 Bears, Bobby Hull plus Blackhawks, White Sox, Cubs, Bulls and Bears stars from yesterday and today. But mostly we've had the honor of serving thousands of our neighbors. We will never forget what we created here and we never forget the friends we made in the name of Jimmy Green's. Join us 'til closing Saturday night, May 13, 2017
A year after grabbing control of the largest undeveloped site in downtown Chicago, Related Midwest is thinking big while taking it slow.While everyone is salivating on what might come, the reality is the entire vision is likely a long ways away. The project likely won't start until 2019 and it sounds like it could take at least 15 years to fully realize the plans.
Over the next two decades, the developer envisions creating a city within the city on the 62-acre parcel along the Chicago River, south of Roosevelt Road, that eventually will link the South Loop and Chinatown. It is one of the most ambitious developments ever conceived in Chicago.
More than 10 million square feet of residential, office, hotel and retail space could rise on the site, a project likely to cost at least $5 billion — and potentially much more — completed in several phases, Related Midwest President Curt Bailey said.
The west side of the site is likely to include a 100-foot-wide, half-mile-long riverwalk flanked by a row of low-slung restaurants and shops. Also envisioned are public art installations, cultural events and, perhaps, infrastructure including new CTA Red Line and Metra train stations.
By next year, when construction of a Wells Street extension from downtown to Chinatown is expected to begin cutting through the site, the developer hopes to bring pop-up food and retail or other events to the site, Bailey said. One idea is to create a variation of London's Pop Brixton shipping container village.We're not familiar with London's Pop Brixton, but according to their website:
"We want to do (the development) right, so we're taking our time planning it," Bailey said. "We're working on creating fun things to do on the site in the interim. Getting people to the site, getting people to understand the site and creating action here is part of our overall plan."
Image from Pop Brixton
Pop Brixton is a temporary project that has turned disused land into a creative space for local, independent businesses. Come and discover South London’s most exciting start-ups working in food, retail, design and social enterprise.
Poke & Roll in old Porkchop space! VERY exciting for printers row!!!
Poke (pronounced “POH-keh”) is a classic Hawaiian appetizer that features sliced and marinated raw fish, served with a wide variety of accompaniments.While we couldn't find a website for Poke & Roll, one would expect it to also sell Sushi Rolls.Yes, that is possibly the vaguest definition ever, but considering “poke” is just a Hawaiian word meaning “to section, slice, or cut,” it makes sense that there are so many variations (you can get octopus, clam, or salmon poke). Still, if you’re eating this traditional raw-fish salad in Hawaii, you’ll most commonly find it made with yellowfin or bigeye tuna that’s been marinated in soy and sesame.
Poke is popular in Hawaii -- like, so popular that people refer to it as Hawaii’s hamburger. But the origin of poke actually dates back to the arrival of the first Hawaiians on the island chain, who cut up whatever fresh fish they caught that day and mixed it with salt and seaweed collected from the ocean. Although the dish has been around a very long time, the name “poke” didn’t become ubiquitous until the 1960s, and it wasn’t until the ‘70s that recipes for poke started appearing in cookbooks.
The developer who plans a new neighborhood along a massive piece of undeveloped South Loop riverfront invites neighbors to help clean the site up Saturday, hoping food trucks and a DJ will sweeten the offer.
About 40 employees of Related Midwest will participate in the citywide Chicago River Day from 9 a.m.-noon Saturday at 1600 S. Wentworth Ave., or the northeast corner of picturesque Ping Tom Park. A DJ will accompany the cleanup while food trucks from The Fat Shallot and Yum Dum will roll up at 11 a.m.
Related Midwest took control of the site, a 62-acre property starting just south of Clark Street and Roosevelt Road, last year with plans to build a new Downtown neighborhood. Disgraced developer and political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko once received city approval to build as many as 4,500 homes on the site.At least you'll get some food and be able to listen to a DJ.
No more micro apartments? New sign up at Dearborn:Polk.Looks to be the case.
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September 2016 (bottom left), and now (bottom right) |
It turns out that Hackney’s Printers Row was closing to make way for a new version of the old business, to be called Hax. Back in 2008, the owners Jim and Ed Hebson and their cousin Jim Masterson, had been inspired by some of the Mexican Americans on the Hackney’s staff and opened the fast-casual Flaco’s Tacos a couple doors down. It was a rapid success, encouraging them to open more locations on the North Side. It was also a harbinger of the future for the owners. Though Hackney’s remained modestly successful, “We’d watch the college kids stream by our door on the way to Flaco’s,” Jim Hebson recalls. Cheered by the relative profitability of the less-labor-intensive concept and challenges to the same at Hackney’s as it faced increasing neighborhood competition, they made the radical decision to reboot.
Jim Hebson gave me a tour of the new venue, which is slated to open in mid-May. Like Flaco’s, customers will order at a counter, where they’ll find a streamlined menu featuring the legendary burgers on homemade buns (including their signature rye), along with turkey burgers, veggie burgers and other sandwiches, a slimmed-down onion loaf and homemade pies. They’ll also be able to partake of a curated selection of ten local beers on tap, as well as a signature frozen drink. But Hax is also planned to be more of a hangout than Flaco’s, filling in the coffeehouse vibe vacated when the long-running Gourmand closed across the street a few years back. Coffee and breakfast will be served, and seating includes couches and booths. “We want people to hang out all day here, working on their laptops,” Hebson says.
Entirely new will be the adjacent space, recently annexed, that will house Gordo’s, which will offer homemade ice cream sandwiches with a variety of mix-ins.
I noticed last night a work permit (see photo attached) for a cycling studio at 1333 S. Wabash. Thought you would have an interest.
A Bronzeville woman said a man might have tried to abduct her 7-year-old son while shopping last week at the South Loop Mariano's.
Jai Ivester was at the grocery store at 1615 S. Clark St. on April 24 like she often is after picking up her children at Daystar School nearby.
Ivester was trying to get her kids to mosey past the store's gelato counter that afternoon when a man grabbed her son from behind and whispered something unintelligible in his ear. The man fled after the boy pulled away.Be aware...very scary stuff.
Chicago’s Columbia College, a higher education institution which focuses on art and media, has announced that it plans to erect a new five-story, 114,000 square-foot student center for its South Loop campus. The upcoming student center will be the first such facility in the institution’s 127-year history, Columbia College claims. In an announcement, Columbia College president Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim says that the new student center will be a “welcoming space as distinctive” as its student body.There are some other renderings at Curbed. While the article doesn't confirm the location, we're pretty sure it's the Northwest corner of Wabash/8th:
Any idea what sort of business this is? Saw this on the entrance to Dearborn Station
Walk Ping Tom Memorial Park with Principal Ernest Wong of site design group, ltd., the landscape architecture firm responsible for designing the 19-acre public open space located in Chicago’s growing Chinatown neighborhood.
Developed in five phases over 18 years the park has become a cultural destination for visitors and has also become an important part of daily life that contributes to the health and wellness of neighborhood residents and the region.
