CHICAGO | General Developments

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Parts of Jackson Park were also filled (and dredged), I'm sure they could have raised the same stink with a little bit of creativity.

Not the library site, which is next to Stony Island Ave. They asked me to research that very issue, and I had to tell them it had always been dry land.

It's not that Lake Michigan must remain open for navigation or wharfage; it's that the lake (or filled-in lake) cannot be transferred to private control.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

filled-in lake cannot be transferred to private control...

... because it must remain open for the public to use because navigable waterways are covered by the public trust doctrine. Navigable waterways are places that vessels may pass through for trade or any other use. Therefore the to claim the filled in lake falls under public trust doctrine you must be asserting that it is a navigable waterway. And like I said, I'd like to see you try to pilot a boat through the Lucas Museum site.

Public trust doctrine traditionally applies to the land and seabed from the highwater mark out, there is no longer a lake here, therefore no public trust doctrine. IF this case were to be won, then what of all the lands that were once part of the Chicago River? Do we now prevent the construction of the River South proposal because it sits on a former waterway? Do we tear down any factory that lies on a filled in channel of bubbly creek? Is all vacant land in Streeterville now falling under this concept? Or does this only apply to lands still controlled by the government? What about water that was previously land? Does that not fall under public trust? Or can you only add to lands falling under this doctrine and never subtract? Are the boundaries of bodies of water static or are they not? Nature would seem to indicate they are literally fluid.

[Mr Downtown]

^You may wish to study this subject more extensively before sitting for the bar exam.

You're muddling together a number of different things: the law of navigable waters, the law of accretions, common-law rules about shoreline access, and the public trust doctrine.

Read the various cases I linked to in the Lucas Museum thread. They're not terribly lengthy. If you still have questions, pose them there and I'll try to explain.

[Randomguy34]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I think it will be OK, though who knows if it'll become out of scale. NeXT is being built on the same intersection and Circa 922 is on the intersection right north of there. Both are high rises

Yeah, I don't know what I was talking about when I said that it would be imposing. Imposing to the 1 story building next door? Sure. Imposing to NeXT? I don't think so.


Source: http://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2...ome-mixed-use/

[pip]

Here is my opinion on the Grant Park area and Maggie Daley Park.

I'm not impressed.

Grant Park from angles for a camera looks good or from an aerial view looks good but that's it. Nothing like all those what 8 lane roads that go through the park. Maybe it's less lanes but that is what sticks in my mind. Also what sticks in my mind is that I can't cross here so I have to wait to go to the other side then wait to cross to where I wanted. To me it looks good from afar only.


Maggie Daley Park. I only went there once. It was last fall on the waning warm days and it appeared to be still being completed in areas. To me it reminded me of a version of Navy Pier and is set up for tourists. I was nearby so I though I would walk over and check it out. I made the mistake of going there having to go to the bathroom assuming that I could find a bathroom there.

That's it from my unprofessional view of those two areas. I don't put a ton of thought into these areas or much of any thought but those are the impressions I have.

[marothisu]

Speaking of parks and public spaces - the renovation of Mariano Park (Viagra Triangle) received a permit on Tuesday.

[harryc]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

Yeah, I don't know what I was talking about when I said that it would be imposing. Imposing to the 1 story building next door? Sure. Imposing to NeXT? I don't think so.

]

Kitty Korner - NICE

3/14

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by pip

Here is my opinion on the Grant Park area and Maggie Daley Park.

I'm not impressed.

Grant Park from angles for a camera looks good or from an aerial view looks good but that's it. Nothing like all those what 8 lane roads that go through the park. Maybe it's less lanes but that is what sticks in my mind. Also what sticks in my mind is that I can't cross here so I have to wait to go to the other side then wait to cross to where I wanted. To me it looks good from afar only.


Maggie Daley Park. I only went there once. It was last fall on the waning warm days and it appeared to be still being completed in areas. To me it reminded me of a version of Navy Pier and is set up for tourists. I was nearby so I though I would walk over and check it out. I made the mistake of going there having to go to the bathroom assuming that I could find a bathroom there.

That's it from my unprofessional view of those two areas. I don't put a ton of thought into these areas or much of any thought but those are the impressions I have.

I really like Maggie Daley Park, but I think it treads the border of almost having too much activity. I wouldn't go so far as calling it a theme park, but at some point a park should just be a place to get away and relax in a natural setting, in my opinion.

Grant Park, on the other hand, I have only negative things to say about. The handling of the cutting of roads through there is the most criminal thing I've ever seen.

Now that is a battle that the FotP nitwits should be fighting instead of earning bad press by basically LOSING a museum for Chicago. Sure the roads in Grant Park are already there, but they should be fighting to get them either buried, removed, or redone. For example, Central Park in NYC has roads cutting through it as well but they have been handled much, much, much more gracefully and they practically fade into the background. They are not even remotely as disruptive to parkgoers as the 5 lane highways criscrossing Grant Park are.

If it's too expensive to bury them, they should just get rid of 50% of them and narrow the rest. Build some underground pedestrian tunnels. Do something! It seems as if there isn't even a dialogue about this. There should be, except that, again, FotP is too busy trying to drive away major cultural institutions..

[Mr Downtown]

FotP has made several pushes over the years to reduce the amount of paving in Grant Park. But just starting a let's-make-things-better crusade from scratch usually isn't very effective in this town. Better to use the pressure points created when a new project is being designed. For example, FotP is working very hard to see that the North Lake Shore Drive project makes Lincoln Park better, not worse. They also want to reinvigorate the Last 4 Miles project to make the entire lakefront public, but just sending a letter to the editor won't do it. They need some serious foundation—and City Hall—support.

As for Central Park, Olmsted had some terrain to work with in Manhattan. He had some hills to use to make the Transverse Drives more unobtrusive, and was working in the naturalistic landscape tradition. Alas, Bennett had no hills to help him with Grant Park, and chose to work in the formal French tradition.

[SamInTheLoop]

Saw a headline in some online real estate industry rag (think maybe Globest) that the really nice project up on Lincoln Ave (involves demo of an existing residential - I believe condo, no - is this the one that a developer was able to buy out all the owners? - building) that this project of ~10 stories I think is finally launching......developer is Baker Development.......so I suppose look for visible demo starting on site soon....

[marothisu]

Grant Park is a nice retreat, but I do think they can do some things better, at least in the kind of in between months where it's not super cold out but not nice out either. I used to go there a lot, and it's absolutely true that there are big parts of Grant Park that don't have many people or anybody. Not calling for it to be teeming with people all the time, but I can think of a few areas I've been to a lot where I've hardly seen more than 10 people there.

I was there a few weeks ago showing around some friends/visitors from Europe. We went to the middle of Grant Park - it wasn't super cold out, but it was maybe 40 and a little dreary. It was absolutely dead - almost nobody in there. We walked a lot of Grant Park and saw less than 10 people at 2pm on a Sunday. It wasn't bad out - no rain, no snow, nothing. It was just about 40 and cloudy, and not terribly windy either.

Though we can't have it blooming with flowers at that time of year, it would be cool to have another free-to-attend market type of thing there for a week or two in late Feb/early March just to get more people in there in those months. I'm thinking about something like Christkindlmarket or what they'll do in NYC at places like Bryant Park (though maybe not as long as that) and Union Square.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

Saw a headline in some online real estate industry rag (think maybe Globest) that the really nice project up on Lincoln Ave (involves demo of an existing residential - I believe condo, no - is this the one that a developer was able to buy out all the owners? - building) that this project of ~10 stories I think is finally launching......developer is Baker Development.......so I suppose look for visible demo starting on site soon....

Hmm, thought the residents shot this one down? No demo permits pending or issued from this site. But who knows - One Bennett Park didn't either, then all of a sudden got issued one two days ago.

[SamInTheLoop]

John Buck just redesigned their website - linked-to below, and it now includes some more local projects, and maybe a few renderings for projects that had been on the old site that maybe we haven't seen previously........still waiting for their new 151 north franklin site to lauch.......

Most interesting to me was a very large (550 unit) residential project that they have in the works at 845 W Madison in the West Loop......design looks pretty nice to me (certainly much better than your standard W Loop new construction mid-rise fare at least), and I can't say that I'd heard of this one previously.....I think I knew that Buck is working on something for the former H2O hq site (this isn't it though, is it?.....thought that one was somewhere further west in the neighborhood.........could be wrong of course though).....

http://www.tjbc.com/portfolio/

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

Most interesting to me was a very large (550 unit) residential project that they have in the works at 845 W Madison in the West Loop.....
http://www.tjbc.com/portfolio/

Nice catch! That is indeed the H20 site.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Grant Park is a nice retreat, but I do think they can do some things better, at least in the kind of in between months where it's not super cold out but not nice out either. I used to go there a lot, and it's absolutely true that there are big parts of Grant Park that don't have many people or anybody. Not calling for it to be teeming with people all the time, but I can think of a few areas I've been to a lot where I've hardly seen more than 10 people there.

I was there a few weeks ago showing around some friends/visitors from Europe. We went to the middle of Grant Park - it wasn't super cold out, but it was maybe 40 and a little dreary. It was absolutely dead - almost nobody in there. We walked a lot of Grant Park and saw less than 10 people at 2pm on a Sunday. It wasn't bad out - no rain, no snow, nothing. It was just about 40 and cloudy, and not terribly windy either.

Though we can't have it blooming with flowers at that time of year, it would be cool to have another free-to-attend market type of thing there for a week or two in late Feb/early March just to get more people in there in those months. I'm thinking about something like Christkindlmarket or what they'll do in NYC at places like Bryant Park (though maybe not as long as that) and Union Square.

youre still going to be competing with weather no matter what at this time of year. this year hasnt been too bad, but most years people wouldnt be caught dead just mingling around outdoors in late Feb/early March (esp years like 2013-2015, we were still having blizzards). i mean its a nice thought, but its always going to be a crap shoot. people are willing to do Christkindlmarket because of the whole holiday vibe and a lot of people will come from the suburbs to hang out for an evening, or from an office after work. its fun to get into the spirit at the time of year. theres no spirit to February, its a soul crushing month in the upper midwest. we're just never going to be an outdoor city this time of year and the city is never going to risk planning markets or whatever when the risk of having it be miserable is so high.

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

Saw a headline in some online real estate industry rag (think maybe Globest) that the really nice project up on Lincoln Ave (involves demo of an existing residential - I believe condo, no - is this the one that a developer was able to buy out all the owners? - building) that this project of ~10 stories I think is finally launching......developer is Baker Development.......so I suppose look for visible demo starting on site soon....

Baker's Lincoln Center project is moving forward. It's called Elevate now.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

youre still going to be competing with weather no matter what at this time of year. this year hasnt been too bad, but most years people wouldnt be caught dead just mingling around outdoors in late Feb/early March (esp years like 2013-2015, we were still having blizzards). i mean its a nice thought, but its always going to be a crap shoot. people are willing to do Christkindlmarket because of the whole holiday vibe and a lot of people will come from the suburbs to hang out for an evening, or from an office after work. its fun to get into the spirit at the time of year. theres no spirit to February, its a soul crushing month in the upper midwest. we're just never going to be an outdoor city this time of year and the city is never going to risk planning markets or whatever when the risk of having it be miserable is so high.

Totally. Not saying they should just put one up there but if they got a good idea for a market, they should try it. I go to them in the winter in NYC (whether it's Bryant Park, Union Square, etc) and while the weather isn't as bad as Chicago on average during winter, it's still not warm. At night it's still in the lower 30s and during the day in the 30s or low 40s. People go there and it's because the markets are good (or they go there because they're near work - there's some smaller street-ish type ones in Midtown for example that get a lot during the fall).

[k1052]

West Loop NIMBY heads are going to explode over that H20 proposal....

[Ryanrule]

Grant needs some serious landscaping. Bury the tracks all the way, have a nice hill there.

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by k1052

West Loop NIMBY heads are going to explode over that H20 proposal....

It's 8 stories – shove it down their throats (should be easy once their heads have exploded).