CHICAGO | Lincoln Yards

[gandalf612]

Small update. I bike over the Cortland St bridge to work, and this week utility work started west of the bridge.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by closedspace

...
These constant appeals to "open space" are such a mystery to me.

If you think about the places that people seem to really like to congregate (Clark in Andersonville, Division in Wicker, Armitage in Lincoln Park, Bucktown and Belmont Cragin, Augusta in West Town, 53rd in Hyde Park, Wentworth in Chinatown) or some of the most enjoyable streets to just take a walk (Lawrence, Armitage, Kimball, Foster), the thing they all have in common is that they are human scaled and there is no forced "open space" between the structures. Things are close by and the re-enforcement of street activity and lots of people leads to a variety of businesses in a small area, which is enjoyable to walk through and fun to experience.
...

You're basically making the same arguments Jane Jacobs does. I assume you've read her books, but if not you should. She's not perfect, and not all of her ideas are ideal, but she is rightfully considered to be sort of the mother (or perhaps grandmother) of the return to urbanism.

Originally Posted by closedspace

Given the choice of building something new, I can't fathom why anyone would push for fewer tall buildings further apart over more shorter buildings closer together. I'd much rather have a 6-8 story absolute height limit with no open space requirement than dedicating tons of land to gaps in the urban fabric.
...

I completely agree, and that's why Paris and Madrid are two of my favorite cities. They both have that scale, a few grand, ceremonial parks in the center and at the edges, and then a good smattering of what we might call pocket parks or small plazas, no more than the equivalent of 2-3 Chicago standard lots in size, scattered around everywhere.

Chicago actually, in my opinion, has the bones for an excellent parks system (lower case intentionally, as I'm not talking about organized, top-down creation, but a system of rules that naturally lead to something like I described when talking about Paris).

By way of "edge parks" we have Lincoln Park and Jackson Park, and whatever the stretch of lakefront between Jackson Park and McCormick Place is called, as well as the forest preserves on the inland side. For centralized "grand, ceremonial" parks, we have Grant Park for the city as a whole, and then various sectors have their own "grand, ceremonial" parks, too - Garfield Park for the West Side, Humboldt Park for the Northwest Side, Douglas Park for the Southwest Side, Washington and Marquette Parks for the South Side.

And then there are dozens of smaller parks, some of them almost to the scale of grand, ceremonial ones, like McKinley Park, and some just nice neighborhood gathering spaces like Mary Bartelme Park or Ward Park, and others still like European plazas, like Mariano Park.

Originally Posted by closedspace

For me, the most tangible impact of "density" is making long walks feel short. Towers in the park Le Corbusier style are the antithesis of this type of design. Unfortunately the renderings of Lincoln Yards resemble this kind of thing a bit too closely.

As others have noted, where Chicago gets itself into trouble is with developments like Prairie Shores or Lake Meadows, or the Cabrini Green highrises. I would personally support the City banning development that has undedicated green space like those, requiring buildings meet the street strongly, and any park space to be specifically designed to be used as park space instead of just leaving unprogrammed voids between buildings. The development of the Tribune space along the River between Goose Island and Grand only looks marginally better, too.

Originally Posted by Rizzo

...
And file traffic circles under the adding more lanes argument. They’re best suited to semi-rural environments. They don’t function well in multimodal urban environments.

Paris, Boston, Washington, London, etc, etc, might disagree with that. Certainly there is a limit to the number of places they're useful anywhere, but Chicago is not currently, nor has it ever been, at risk of getting anywhere near the upper limit.

[VKChaz]

Originally Posted by closedspace

Motion Seconded.

Hopefully everyone will indulge a newbie on a little rant on this topic:

These constant appeals to "open space" are such a mystery to me.

If you think about the places that people seem to really like to congregate (Clark in Andersonville, Division in Wicker, Armitage in Lincoln Park, Bucktown and Belmont Cragin, Augusta in West Town, 53rd in Hyde Park, Wentworth in Chinatown) or some of the most enjoyable streets to just take a walk (Lawrence, Armitage, Kimball, Foster), the thing they all have in common is that they are human scaled and there is no forced "open space" between the structures. Things are close by and the re-enforcement of street activity and lots of people leads to a variety of businesses in a small area, which is enjoyable to walk through and fun to experience.

But we have examples of the opposite of this kind of development right here in Chicago too--the Prairie Shores complex. Tall buildings spaced far apart with nothing but open space and yet it feels oppressive and barren. Everyone drives in and out of it with good reason! It's crazy pedestrian hostile, and the streets around it are dead.

Obviously these are two extremes but what it demonstrates is that human scale development with easy access to buildings makes existing in that environment enjoyable and fun! Building it is perhaps more chaotic but the what we end up with is just a much nicer place to be.

I read an interesting masters thesis on this topic recently, which attempted to define the proportion of open space that maximizes individual urban property values. The author found that 1-5% of total land as open space ended up maximizing property value, but subjectively people want a lot more--so much so that nearly every city surveyed were heavily oversupplied with it. Chicago was one of the worst offenders. This disconnect deserves a lot more research.

Given the choice of building something new, I can't fathom why anyone would push for fewer tall buildings further apart over more shorter buildings closer together. I'd much rather have a 6-8 story absolute height limit with no open space requirement than dedicating tons of land to gaps in the urban fabric.

For me, the most tangible impact of "density" is making long walks feel short. Towers in the park Le Corbusier style are the antithesis of this type of design. Unfortunately the renderings of Lincoln Yards resemble this kind of thing a bit too closely.

I haven't closely followed this planning so don't know all that is intended by "open space" here. But I think there are generally multiple wants under this category that are worth separating. One is related to riverfront land and how that should be treated - how much is green space or natural land vs. how much developed space and how they mesh, for example. And that is all worthy of debate.

But another is the question of working recreational space that would have arisen as this area converts from largely industrial to more residential and so was not previously emphasized. For example, picture the soccer fields and little league fields used by kids and families or by adult rec leagues (some popular with young single people but could apply to anyone). And part of the point of living in a dense city is that everything should be easier to reach and shouldn't necessarily require everyone to have to travel by car to a distant location. Play fields, park district field houses offering summer camps, maybe some related private areas reserved for groups like the YMCA or activities like climbing walls.
In proper planning, we should be able to parse out all that is often grouped under the heading of "open space" and consider how to solve for each component. I could be wrong but I wouldn't expect most people with an interest in this or any other area consider towers in a park to be suitable open space. Though it may be what developers want to pass off as their version of open space. I expect what most people want are well designed areas of usable space that actually meets their daily needs.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by emathias

Paris, Boston, Washington, London, etc, etc, might disagree with that. Certainly there is a limit to the number of places they're useful anywhere, but Chicago is not currently, nor has it ever been, at risk of getting anywhere near the upper limit.

The circles in those cities are really political spaces - they are intentionally created for monuments with political meaning. Like it or not, though, I think we won't be creating more monuments in the future, because our political battles and our venerations are increasingly done in virtual space.

The roundabouts being pitched for suburban areas are really just about improving safety and lowering costs at low-volume intersections. They don't have a political or even a placemaking rationale.

[BVictor1]

I'm hearing this could be on the January or February plan commission.

[BonoboZill4]

Originally Posted by BVictor1

I'm hearing this could be on the January or February plan commission.

Honestly didn't realize that this one hadn't yet been passed with all the stuff that had gone through in the last two months. Only can be a good sign in my book

[OhioGuy]

Lincoln Yards Plan: Too Tall And Out Of Place. Slow It Down

BY BLAIR KAMIN
TRIBUNE CRITIC
PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 28, 2018

A great urban place is more than a motley collection of tall buildings and open spaces. It has lively streets, pulsing gathering spots and buildings that talk to one another rather than sing the architectural equivalent of a shrill solo.

Daley Plaza, with its enigmatic Picasso sculpture and powerful county courts high-rise, is a great urban place. So is the North Side’s Armitage Avenue, lined with delightful Victorian storefronts.

The latest plan for the $5 billion-plus Lincoln Yards megadevelopment, which would transform 54.5 acres of former industrial land along the Chicago River into offices, apartments, shops and entertainment venues including a 20,000-seat soccer stadium, doesn’t measure up.

It would be dramatically out of scale with its surroundings, piercing the delicate urban fabric of the city’s North Side with a swath of downtown height and bulk. It also would be out of character with its environs, more Anytown than Our Town.

And that’s what the debate over Lincoln Yards is really about — not just the zoning change the developers seek, which would reclassify their land from a manufacturing district to a mixed-use waterfront zone, but urban character.

What kind of city are we building? Who is it for? Does it have room for the small and the granular as well as the muscular and the monumental?

[BonoboZill4]

I don't agree with Blair at all here for a multitude of reasons(in terms of his arguments), but I also dislike this project for different reasons and fully expect it to never materialize, so meh. Kamen used to annoy me more. He needs to step his game up

[Rizzo]

I wish when people talk about “delicate urban fabric” they could speak more of historic preservation rather than what’s going up on vacant industrial land. Neighborhood character wouldn’t be in jeopardy if we had more perfectly intact historic districts. Then it wouldn’t matter so much if you built some crazy huge development nearby.

[ardecila]

As usual, Blair Kamin with the most lukewarm of hot takes.

This will make congestion worse, he says with one breath while dismissing the four new river bridges, transit line, Metra station, and other projects planned.

I get that Kamin is writing for a general audience but jeez. I envy Philly with Inga Saffron, or NY with Alexandra Lange. Critics should be adding to the discussion productively and, ideally, calling out BS from both developers and community organizers, like the "nature preserve" plan for one of the North Side's most polluted, unnatural sites.

Originally Posted by Rizzo

I wish when people talk about “delicate urban fabric” they could speak more of historic preservation rather than what’s going up on vacant industrial land. Neighborhood character wouldn’t be in jeopardy if we had more perfectly intact historic districts. Then it wouldn’t matter so much if you built some crazy huge development nearby.

Well, yes but there are some thorny issues. Historic districts usually function as a tool for hyper-gentrification, they restrict new housing from coming online and encourage rising land values to be captured through deconversion to SFH mansions rather than teardown/rebuild. Further, Chicago's "historic" neighborhoods are often the ones oriented around rail lines. If you landmark those areas, it just pushes vulnerable people out faster, whether those vulnerable people are working-class minorities or struggling creative types.

[k1052]

I get where Kamin is coming from but he really loses me at the contrast with Armitage, ignoring the current industrial wasteland and slew of strip malls that are the actual context for this development.

I'd like to see a tighter more urban plan but I'm not going to pretend about its current state or surroundings.

The ever present worry about congestion (cars) also grates on me because the argument should be about how to move more people not more vehicles.

[r18tdi]

Geez, does Kamin live in the Ranch Triangle or something?

[SteelMonkey]

Looks like the stadium has now been scrapped

https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...108-story.html

[k1052]

I personally don't care if they build a stadium or not but I LOLed at the "turn it into open space" part of the letter.

[maru2501]

performance venues scratched as well

[Natoma]

"Attention peasants and subjects!
After consulting with the baronial court, it is decreed that there shall be no soccer or concerts within my lands!
Thus orders your master, Lord Hopkins"

at least, that's how I read it..

[Vlajos]

The soccer stadium at that location always seemed like a bad idea to me.

[chrisvfr800i]

"The tallest of them would rise to 650 feet instead of the gasp-inducing 818 feet that the firm and its architects, the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, proposed in July.
The neighbors have every reason to be concerned. A 650-foot tower wouldn’t just loom menacingly over the little shops of the Armitage retail strip. It even would be out of scale with Lincoln Park’s tall buildings, which line the western edge of the park from which the neighborhood takes its name."



This guy is a gasp-inducing menace!!

[BuildThemTaller]

Originally Posted by chrisvfr800i

"The tallest of them would rise to 650 feet instead of the gasp-inducing 818 feet that the firm and its architects, the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, proposed in July.
The neighbors have every reason to be concerned. A 650-foot tower wouldn’t just loom menacingly over the little shops of the Armitage retail strip. It even would be out of scale with Lincoln Park’s tall buildings, which line the western edge of the park from which the neighborhood takes its name."



This guy is a gasp-inducing menace!!

The shadows! The shadows! They menace us so.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by maru2501

performance venues scratched as well