^urban renewal? Lol

Let's not lose sight of the fact that something like 7* parking lots located close to one of the busiest L stops in the city have also bit the dust. It sucks that IO Theater and some nice older buildings are being torn down. On the other hand, are we upset about placing dense residential and retail developments right next to public transportation? I sure hope not. Sure, sure there are reasons to critique the design (when aren't there?). But these developments are on net very, very good for Chicago.

* If memory serves, parking lots lost included the ones south, east, and in front of the 7/11 (3), the players' parking lot on the Triangle Lot (1), the one south and north of the McDonald's (2), and then another one north of the McDonald's parking lot (1).

New City faces inwards and has a horrible relationship with the street. The main focus is on its cul-du-sac. This at least faces the street.

The aesthetics leave much to be desired, I agree. But otherwise I think this strip of Wrigleyville needs to offer more than one watering hole after another. Other types of retail and entertainment will balance out what is already there. There are going to be people who don't want this change, but such is the case

well, there already was. there was a diner, a taproom, and a comedy theater. all of those things offered year round options to come to this portion of clark.

this is going to look pretty much like the North Avenue Collection building at north/sheffield from a retail standpoint, which is one of the most vanilla things ever.

Gap! Express! J Crew! Victorias Secret! Banana Republic!

the fact that it meets the street is a pretty low fucking bar.

I highly doubt retail clothing shops are going to choose to locate here. That's already happening just over on Southport. These spaces will all revert to similar bar and entertainment uses as soon as they hit the market. There is just far too much money to having 80 baseball games a year played next door. This development is only going to further intensify this area along with the hotel and other Wrigley improvements. Like it or not, but "Wrigleyville" is about to step it up a notch in terms of vibrancy. It was already nuts before, but it's attaining theme park levels of commercial vibe. I for one am totally fine with that, it's not like Wrigleyville being totally over the top and obnoxious is a new concept.

Someone says it doesn't look like new city because that faces in and this faces toward the street

Ok. This looks like the other side of new city then.

The irony that for the past two decades other cities have attempted to replicate the neighborhood feel of Wrigley with ballpark districts when we had one all along. A great baseball experience extended beyond the friendly confines to a kind of raggedy strip of bars that embodied an old Chicago spirit.

I don't think locals go to wrigleyville as much as they used to except to catch a game. Or maybe it's because I grew up. But I would think the recent big 10 grads have a lot more bar options than I did when I first moved here. No doubt this new building will be a hit with the tourists and suburbanites.

It would probably be foolish of me to oppose any change to Wrigleyville but even streets like southport have totally transitioned with more modern buildings and high end boutiques without killing the charm. I think the problem with this new development is entirely architectural and lack of commitment by a developer to go above and beyond a prototype for something that's better for a landmark location.

Unfortunately, under the zoning code, you can't really unlock higher levels of density and activity while keeping things "fine-grained". You have to assemble large parcels to make things efficient.

Fire stairs, elevators, sprinkler systems, etc all make it spatially and financially unrealistic to build urban fabric like this in America. All you can do is break up the massing to mimic it a little bit (which SCB failed to do at APoC).

http://i64.tinypic.com/6f77et.jpg

Make Wrigleyville Great Again!

The truth is that Wrigleyville has never been and probably never will be as great as you imagined it once was. Some local bars were taken over by corporate-style places years ago (Black Crow, Moe's Cantina, Red Ivy, and on and on). It's kind of shitty in some places. The Taco Bell is a shitshow and isn't going away anytime soon. Many of the bars down Clark are closed and have been for years. I'm 34 and have been going to Wrigley since the 1980s, like a lot of so-called suburbanites and tourists. The truth is that this is going to be ok and maybe even good. People want to live near Wrigley, even if you despise hose them down with water when they walk on your lawn playing Pokemon Go. Some people - a lot, really - want to shop and enjoy entertainment besides getting drunk on Clark and Addison right around the corner from their apartment. That's a good thing for the city.

There is no such thing as a suburbanite or tourist. They are just people.

If you don't want out of towners visiting Wrigleyville, and you have this bizarre notion that only people living within city limits should be visiting (people from Chatham are okay, but not people from Elk Grove Village?) then that's disappointingly provincial, and Chicago already suffers from too much of that.

It's also an unrealistic expectation in a city whose population remains stagnant, is seeing taxes continue to rise, and is increasingly dependent on tourism in this ever globalizing economy.

thankfully they will not be able to completely weed out divey baseball bars from the general area.
I was at both games yesterday and the whole neighborhood feels like a demo site

while i think density, up to a point, is a good thing, its not the end all be all for livability. fine grained texture does matter, which is why it saddens me anytime we lose some. especially when this is the result. are we prepared to lose our entire neighborhood prewar commercial stocks?

and quite honestly, Tokyo dosent seem like the kind of place id ever want to live either. im on chicago's leafy north side for a reason.

Of course they won't, as someone else mentioned, there are already plenty of vacant storefronts up and down Clark from here with a handful of underutilized and vacant parcels that are suitable for new construction three to six unit buildings. If anything, this development will suck in all the corporate chainy stuff and satiate the demand for that in a much more desirable location and keep prices low enough elsewhere that independent divey businesses can continue to thrive here.

I don't understand the people who gripe about gentrification and then oppose new, dense, supply. If you don't want all the little businesses to go, then let the huge underutilized parcel get redeveloped into a massive hulk so all the demand is absorbed there instead.

What buildings were torn down for this that had any historical or architectural merit, aside from the standalone Starbucks three flat? Almost everything destroyed for this were garbage single story industrial or retail buildings that are a dime a dozen and add little value.

I like the Salt & Pepper Diner and Goose Island buildings, but neither are spectacular.

In my perfect world, they would've been able to buy that hideous Sports World building on Addison & Clark. The project site would've been mainly along Addison up to Clark, demoing everything south down Clark until the Salt & Pepper Diner building.

Exactly what I was thinking when reading the comments. The old blue comedy building has architectural merit? The 711? That worn down parking lot by the starbucks? Not sure what the fuss is about. Honestly, the imminent areas around Wrigley needed a little cleanup. I think the ending outcome of Wrigleyville will look great while retaining its ballpark neighborhood feel.

this is garbage and without value in your book?

https://assets.dnainfo.com/generated...JPG/larger.jpg

i liked the salt and pepper diner too. it felt like a uniquely Chicago block. not everything needs to be a landmark to add character or a sense of place to an area. the vast majority of chicago buildings are not by the strict definition of the term "landmarks", but unless youre prepared to wipe out 90% of our prewar housing and commercial stock, thats a pretty precarious position. the fact that bungalows are a dime a dozen dosent mean i like to see one demolished either.

^yeah, would have been cool if they could have kept the facade of that

And in that photo you cherry picked the two best buildings on a small corner of a nearly 2.7 acre site (with roughly 1.3 acres of parking lot and three or four vacant buildings) that generally features run-down buildings (the beat-up buildings north of Salt & Pepper and everything along Addison). While it would have been nice to keep the IO Theater the building they were in is kinda lousy and their move, to a larger theater they own out-right, will likely be a boon for them in the long run.

Since the line is directed toward me, I never said I don't want out of towners.

Don't misconstrue what I said

Wrigleyville is a well known destination among out-of-towners. It's a place they will consider first before other entertainment destinations that are more well known to locals. For example, Wicker park in years past received more patronage from locals. Now there's more out-of-town visitors and it's become a tourist destination. It now has a hotel. Wrigleyville will have a hotel. Suburbanites or tourists won't notice the difference. They don't care about the architecture of the new building. They don't live nearby, they don't know the history of the building. They'll just be aware of its existence and the entertainment it provides.

Tourists will visit. Suburbanites will visit. What did you think I was implying, that there's a superiority here? Tourism was never a problem to me. Actually I think it's a great thing and I agree that it's a boon for the local economy and city coffers.

Your only take-away from my post should be that this development is the result of architectural challenges and the zoning mechanisms that allowed a big mall-like building to get built. It obviously received all the proper approvals which is a snapshot of what future development may surround destination neighborhoods.