CHICAGO | General Developments

[XIII]

Good writeup on the Jackson Park rehab:

http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/201...s-sky-landing/

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by joeg1985

What!? Why would white people be the only ones to use these?

Seattle had some pay-per-use public restrooms in the early part of the last decade and ended up having to sell them for a huge loss when they turned out to be a bigger drag on the area then a benefit. Folks were having sex and suing drugs in them more than anything.

Personally I think people should simply patronize a business to use a restroom or go to a library. It's not that difficult. Or you know, pee in the alley. Be discreet.

Yeah, I think he'll need to explain a bit better what particular diversity angle he has in mind when it comes to free (or for-fee) public restrooms.....not sure I quite get it......

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by i_am_hydrogen

Michele Smith sent out an email regarding the 10-story proposal for 2518-2552 Lincoln Ave. The Wrightwood Neighbors Association has written a letter in support of the project. It will appear before the Chicago Plan Commission on July 16th.

Beautiful. Really happy to see this is moving forward!

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Mixed-use development. Oddly low-density for a site right next to Metra and the Blue Line... only 18 residential units, in a separate structure from the commercial. Design is very underwhelming but the neighborhood is legendary for NIMBYs. Right now only the 2-story commercial building is under construction, the residential is a second phase.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1563697&type=1

View from Keeler looking east:

Simply deplorable. Centrum is a really cheesy developer. I'd hoped the fact that they really took a bath in the recession would have shut them down, but no such luck I see......

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by joeg1985

What!? Why would white people be the only ones to use these?

Seattle had some pay-per-use public restrooms in the early part of the last decade and ended up having to sell them for a huge loss when they turned out to be a bigger drag on the area then a benefit. Folks were having sex and suing drugs in them more than anything.

Personally I think people should simply patronize a business to use a restroom or go to a library. It's not that difficult. Or you know, pee in the alley. Be discreet.

I didn't say only white people would use these. Diversity doesn't just refer to race. I have been to Portland several times to visit friends who live there and there are a lot of things that seem to be popular among the largely progressive white middle class Portland that just won't ever translate well to say a blue collar midwestern town. For example my friend knows a bunch of folks in Portland who use their own human manure to grow organic in their backyards. That might be a great idea but I don't see that becoming trendy in a lot of places outside of Portland. It's possible the Portland Loo does translate quite well to other places but I think Portland is a bad litmus test for whether something is going to work in Chicago.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by rlw777

I didn't say only white people would use these. Diversity doesn't just refer to race. I have been to Portland several times to visit friends who live there and there are a lot of things that seem to be popular among the largely progressive white middle class Portland that just won't ever translate well to say a blue collar midwestern town. For example my friend knows a bunch of folks in Portland who use their own human manure to grow organic in their backyards. That might be a great idea but I don't see that becoming trendy in a lot of places outside of Portland. It's possible the Portland Loo does translate quite well to other places but I think Portland is a bad litmus test for whether something is going to work in Chicago.

Originally Posted by rlw777

I am suspicious of this Portland Loo and whether or not it's a successful design that is transferable to other locales. Portland has a serious diversity problem and $100,000 is lot to invest in something that may simply be a popular novelty for white middle class hipsters.

While the reputation Portland current has is one of largely white hipsters, it has a pretty deep blue collar streak through it, which is a big part of what initially attracted hipsters. Portland is a town built largely on timber, which is a very blue collar and conservative industry. That it also has other industries, some of which are now tech firms, doesn't completely obliterate that blue collar origin just yet. 20 years ago when I left the Portland area it was somewhat progressive, but in a blue collar West Coast sort of way, which is to say that the people were libertarian - "everybody leave everybody else alone while us big-shots close back-room deals to run the place."

Some has changed, but there is still a blue collar feel in a lot of areas outside of the Pearl, Old Town and the other revitalized central neighborhoods. Certainly it's not the same city as the gritty city featured in Gus Van Sant's early films, but it's not Berkeley, either.

[aaron38]

For suburban fans of big steel, the Zurich Insurance headquarters at I-90 and Meacham in Schaumburg is really taking off. They're laying huge beams across the gap for the floor of the top section now (have temporary support columns that will be removed, and a whole bunch of diagonal beams just went up. It's getting to be impressive. 4 tower cranes running.

Rendering

[wierdaaron]

Not bad for a highway museum piece.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Not bad for a highway museum piece.

Sigh...let's all repeat after me: "Passive-aggressive, mutually derisive attitudes between Chicago and it's suburbs are counterproductive, serve absolutely no benefit to anyone and act only to alienate one another even further." Now write it on the chalkboard 75 times.

[Domer2019]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Not bad for a highway museum piece.

It's not like they're moving out of the city. They're just switching from their twin towers that loom over Woodfield

I just wish the developers didn't get vertigo and read the blueprints as being toppled over, although it looks cool

[joeg1985]

Originally Posted by rlw777

I didn't say only white people would use these. Diversity doesn't just refer to race. I have been to Portland several times to visit friends who live there and there are a lot of things that seem to be popular among the largely progressive white middle class Portland that just won't ever translate well to say a blue collar midwestern town. For example my friend knows a bunch of folks in Portland who use their own human manure to grow organic in their backyards. That might be a great idea but I don't see that becoming trendy in a lot of places outside of Portland. It's possible the Portland Loo does translate quite well to other places but I think Portland is a bad litmus test for whether something is going to work in Chicago.

This describes a difference in culture not in diversity. The Northwest is a totally different culture, just like the midwest, the southwest, California, New England, etc. Paid public restrooms may not be popular amongst midwesterners but if that is the only option, I'm thinking paid restrooms are what people will use. Nobody has a right to use a restroom.

[wierdaaron]

I was being serious. It's good for what it is. I don't like when buildings by freeways go really tall and then surround themselves in parking lots. If you're going to be a suburban mid-rise, do something with it.

[aaron38]

^^^Actually all the parking is in a 4 story garage. The site plans show the building surrounded by landscaped grounds, tennis courts, walking paths and two detention basins for flood control.
And the site isn't actually all that big. The buildings occupy the greater part of it.

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by joeg1985

This describes a difference in culture not in diversity. The Northwest is a totally different culture, just like the midwest, the southwest, California, New England, etc. Paid public restrooms may not be popular amongst midwesterners but if that is the only option, I'm thinking paid restrooms are what people will use. Nobody has a right to use a restroom.

Indeed but I'm saying I would trust designs to be more universally effective from a more culturally diverse location.

[ardecila]

Not sure what diversity has to do with the Portland Loo. Portland has a significant population of homeless, same as Chicago or possibly more due to the milder winters. Same goes for drug addicts and other "undesirables". The Loo is specifically designed to discourage unwanted activity of all kinds.

The Seattle ones were a different design - they were paid (the Portland Loo is free) and they were fully enclosed, so drop a dollar in and you've got your own personal, private sinning booth.

[Domer2019]

Originally Posted by aaron38

^^^Actually all the parking is in a 4 story garage. The site plans show the building surrounded by landscaped grounds, tennis courts, walking paths and two detention basins for flood control.
And the site isn't actually all that big. The buildings occupy the greater part of it.

And this is in the Motorola office park, which factors in to being economical about what is done with the site space. And this certainly beautifies the surroundings by distracting people from the brown slabs next to it.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Is it bad that I find large parts of Chicago's suburbs impressive in a perverted kind of way? I was just out in Schaumburg tonight and it really is nearly as impressive as Chicago's most urban innards in a soul crushingly sprawlish kind of way. You are out in an enormous, heinously suburban, mall surrounded by an array of what are really quite large office blocks. And that's just one of many expansive sprawling suburban centers.

In any case, there is a massive amount of construction going on in the burbs right now including a surprising amount of fairly dense multi family projects. There are big, multi hundred unit, multifamily buildings going up in Deerfield along 94 and in Northbrook along both 94 and 294. There's also several sizable projects out along 90 that I notice tonight on the way to Schaumburg. I also happened to take Fullerton all the way out to 294 earlier today and there are a few projects way out in the far NW side and in suburbs like Elmbrook. I saw a sizable Noah Properties project way out somewhere by Brickyard or Montclare (when's the last time that neighborhood was in the development news?).

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Is it bad that I find large parts of Chicago's suburbs impressive in a perverted kind of way? I was just out in Schaumburg tonight and it really is nearly as impressive as Chicago's most urban innards in a soul crushingly sprawlish kind of way. You are out in an enormous, heinously suburban, mall surrounded by an array of what are really quite large office blocks. And that's just one of many expansive sprawling suburban centers.

^ It's "bad" in the sense that you aren't being a good Urbanist, so shame on you

But I gave up on those ideals long ago. I love walkable density above and beyond all other things, but I also think that the area around Rosemont/OHare is just so fucking cool visibly. When you are on 294 near the airport and look around you it's quite a lot to take in: hotels, office buildings, Fashion Outlets, brightly lit ads, all speaking "megacity".

[Ryanrule]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Sigh...let's all repeat after me: "Passive-aggressive, mutually derisive attitudes between Chicago and it's suburbs are counterproductive, serve absolutely no benefit to anyone and act only to alienate one another even further." Now write it on the chalkboard 75 times.

the suburbs started it. they want city jobs without city taxes.

[Mr Downtown]

^That's overly simplistic. To the point of inaccuracy. Industrial workplaces began moving out of the city as soon as they needed more land: the Union Stock Yards, McCormick Reaper Works, the big railroad shops. During the Second World War, the suburbs were where nearly all the big new defense installations had to be located.

Big office employers began looking around in the 1920s, but got serious after the war about bigger new facilities. When they did, they often surveyed their existing employees and found that a majority already lived in the suburbs. The managers nearly always did. And firms like insurance companies that needed lots of clerical workers found the suburbs to be an excellent source of well-trained yet undemanding pink-collar workers.

Suburban land developers were certainly happy to welcome companies relocating out of the city, but prior to the 1990s I can't think of any direct actions taken by suburban municipalities to lure "Chicago's" jobs.

I'm not sure what you mean by "without city taxes." The state income tax is the same everywhere, and Chicago's property taxes are lower than nearly all suburbs, at least on residential property.