Last night's speakers said they'd done preliminary engineering and found the new CTA station to be feasible. Listening between the lines, I heard concepts that sounded similar to our previous discussion. I doubt that any DPII demolition would be required. I just quickly sketched in a box for the station without looking at platform dimensions. I don't know if one end of the platforms would need to be dug beneath the townhomes or park, but I suspect the original grant of subsurface rights went beyond the width of the current tunnel. Obviously it's easier to do it cut-and-cover mostly west of Clark, with only the station headhouse on the site of the current substation. Enquist mentioned the possibility of partially daylighting the station. My sketch with a 550-foot platform:

https://i.imgur.com/nv9huyW.png

I asked about funding and the official response was encouraging but noncommittal. After the meeting, a Related official I know told me that the picture is probably much more certain than they wanted to say publicly. Related will be putting in place a new TIF (the current one expires at the end of the year).

That's a great image.

Basically, we'rE creating a new city within an existing working city, complete with infrastructure/trans, new housing, likely some offices, and marketing and financing the whole deal throughout. Same goes for Lincoln Yards. If I am a student in urban planning, this becomes one of my major studies. Frankly, DePaul, et al, should work with Related on creating a curriculum. Wasn't the University of Illinois and DePaul supposed to be involved in some sort of tech incubator on this site?

Edit - double post.

If you look at Mr. D's annotated plan view a little further up, the 'Discovery Partners Institute' on the far south end of the development is the tech incubator you're referring to.

Absolutely love that there will be that kind of height that far south. Dearborn Park is really starting to stand out like an isolated island between the growing skyline around Roosevelt/Michigan and The 78. I really hope its days are now numbered as The 78 begins to take off.

It's like when LSE was first proposed back in 2001. We knew that the plan wouldn't come to fruition anytime soon, but at the same time, we were set for several decades of a building boom. Granted, this was after the big lull in skyscraper construction activity in the 90s, so it was a lot more exciting back then. Dare I say, we're getting spoiled? :)

[MODERATOR NOTE] Removed all off topic discussion. . . any further disruptive comments will result in suspensions. . . [/rhetorical]

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Was there any discussion of building (or at least saving room for) a future Metra station at 15th? With a new Red Line station at 15th, it seems like a good spot for transferring between the two.

Also, given the insular nature of Dearborn Park, is there any chance that 15th Street will ever become a through street between Wells and State?

No discussion of a new Metra station. Since it's less than a mile to the line's terminus, I don't think Metra would be very interested. Obviously, you can easily transfer from four L lines already at LaSalle St. Station.

15th isn't blocked by Dearborn Park, which is entirely north of there. It currently has two cul-de-sacs because the owner of one of the adjacent (non-DP) townhouses was Mayor Daley's personal trainer and warned him that allowing any through traffic would be punished by more squat reps. (I wish I was kidding.)

It is relatively easy to transfer between the Rock Island and the Red Line at 35th St.

Adding the 15th/Clark stop will be very useful for the South Loop overall, namely those that live roughly between 14th and 18th.

Hopefully they reconnect it. We really need to heal the street grid in the South Loop. 14th should also be a through street, and serve as a street connection to The 78 in addition to 15th.

I'm sure this is the thing to be least concerned at since its subject to change. But no one is talking about how a 950fter would be a HUGE game changer. (although we have to wait 15 years or so). Good development fills in empty space.

If we get Amazon or Apple, then we can start having pipedreams about a 950 footer and an accelerated pipeline. Until then, I'm just going to be happy with the infrastructure updates and additions!

The 78 is one of at least 4 sites Amazon visited while they were here




Anyone want to risk some $ on amazon HQ2 siteselection?

Go and create an account at bovada and bet in the entertainment section.

Chicago is now 40/1. $250 bet gets you $10,000. Those are really good odds. I bought in at a lower 20/1. FYI the odds makers are choosing northern VA as the odds on favorite.

And if you live in the UK Paddy Power or Pinnacle would also take your bet

Here’s a post I made about this site 4 (grumblegrumble) years ago when the deal was just being made:

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http://i.imgur.com/AYJN22W.jpg

CMK, I will accept credit for inspiration in the form of money.

that site is just gigantic

I don't remember if I saw that image years ago but I've had similar thoughts about the site. I think it would neat to build a small spur-canal to increase water frontage. Won't happen as it would be unneeded infrastructure expense but would be cool anyhow.

Thanks for details. I wanted to attend the meeting but had a previous commitment.

I just posted my thoughts in the transit thread, but they are essentially the same that you posted, minus the helpful graphic.

Obviously the further west of Clark the station box is placed, the better for Related, as it brings the station entrances closer to their site and reduces the impacts to Dearborn Park homes and Cottontail Park. Of course, it also brings the end of the platform closer to the point where the tracks start to curve and slope upward, but I'm sure there is a sweet spot somewhere where a 500' platform can be built.

Encouraging to hear that not only does Related plan a TIF for their site, but that it is expected to produce enough money for the new subway station and other infrastructure.

^I wouldn't say that's a sure thing yet. I'm sure they'll extend or reinstate a TIF district, but I don't know if it will be limited to the site or just how much money it will throw off. I'm sure the first claim will be for the streets/sewer/water lines, riverwalk and park grading, and Metra relocation. A new Red Line station will almost certainly require money from some other pot.

Looking up something else entirely, I came across my fantasy site plan from 2002:

https://i.imgur.com/VD5LLWV.jpg

So you can see why I like pretty much everything about this new plan except the name.

Personally, for a development like this, I think people should be much more concerned with the urban form and pedestrian environment than the height of the tallest tower. There are several 1,000 foot proposals in Chicago at this very moment. But fine grained urbanism on a massive scale with a blank canvas is the harder thing to achieve.

This will not be fine-grained. Best case scenario is that it succeeds as a transit-oriented office destination like Canary Wharf on a smaller scale, with high-quality architecture and public spaces. Fine-grained can't really be achieved these days.. it cuts against everything we know about economies of scale. I've thought about this, and I feel like it's not possible under the current dynamic of city government and developer.

First, a fine-grained neighborhood has a grid of small blocks or an otherwise tight, connective pattern of streets. A street grid has lots of total street length, most of which will be lightly-used by design. Back in the 1800s when a street was just a strip of dirt devoid of buildings, it wasn't a big deal to put in a street grid - it was a loss of developable land, but improved the value of all the subdivided parcels by ensuring access. Today, when a large parcel has new streets platted, city governments require not just a "strip of dirt devoid of buildings", but new roadbed, curbs, sidewalks, sewers, water mains, fire hydrants, street lighting, and trees. In a downtown development, add in duct banks for underground power and telecommunications. All that stuff is very expensive.

The city, of course, expects the developer to pay for all of this, which means we can't use the model from the 1800s, where one landowner subdivides the land into parcels and plots "imaginary" streets with no physical infrastructure, then sells the subdivided parcels to a patchwork quilt of different builders. That's how we got "fine-grained urbanism" back then. However, under that scenario, the city had to pick up the tab for all the above-ground and below-ground infrastructure that comprised "the street", as those systems were refined and became demanded by taxpayers.

Today, though, we expect our governments to keep taxes low and extract as much as possible from developers, so it's not surprising when those developers choose site plans that minimize costly new streets and propose a series of large buildings that can be built efficiently over time, in sync with economic cycles, that nevertheless deliver the maximum financial returns possible given the constraints of the site.

With that being said - there are still some opportunities for fine-grained urbanism under the current paradigm. Certainly most of the city has fine-grained already baked in, since the land is already platted, but for large sites, I actually really like townhouse developments (rowhouses), as done in Chicago at least. Townhouses by design are compact, so the scale of the development is automatically fine-grained, and all the public spaces and circulation spaces in a townhouse development are private, so they don't have to built to the costly city standards. The inherent efficiencies of a townhouse project also make them friendly to developer proformas when larger midrise buildings are not allowed by community input/zoning. Controversial opinion maybe, but Willow Court in Bucktown is one of my favorite large-scale developments in the city.

Your comments remind me of this article about Omaha:

62 acres of land is equivalent to about 2,700,000 sq ft....

Any structures nearby that's relatively the same size?

An dense streetgrid may be a bit much to ask, but I think we should at least expect a couple of through and interconnected streets, something akin to the layout Mr. D has depicted above, as a bare minimum.

Definitely we cannot accept a Dearborn Park kind of situation.

Though I certainly hope this project will feel more open than Dearborn Park, the facts on the ground are not actually all that different. Three streets enter The 78; only one leaves. Same with Dearborn Park, except that only peds/bikes (not autos) can currently go through on the "through" street.

Oh man you really nailed it here. It's the failure of the people to invest in the future as much as developers really. If the public isn't willing to own its share of the future it's gong to continue to get quasi gated communities for the rich. They're pretty to look at but they don't add much to the urban fabric even if they make the skyline look great. Like i love looking at Lakeshore East but it's essentially a very, very tall suburban subdivision.

The Old Post office building is 2.3-2.4 million sq ft - close enough :shrug:

Agreed. I understand the existing constrains on the site, and the inability to add more north/south through streets other than Wells/Wentworth and LaSalle/Delano, but not having additional east west streets to connect to Clark (and God willing, to the rest of the South Loop once Dearborn Park can be addressed) seems foolish, and future traffic nightmare scenarios on 15th St, which is the ONLY street to connect Clark, LaSalle, and Wells to each other.

At the very minimum, 14th St should be extended from Clark all the way to Wells. Doing the same to 13th St. would be wise as well, since that will give more options for traffic to flow and disperse. Having a nearly 1/2 mile stretch of Wells with no traffic lights risk turning it into an auto-sewer as cars race along it during rush periods to get to/from downtown and neighborhoods further south.

Hopefully the planning department sees this as well, and advises Related to allow for additional east-west streets, although I'm not holding my breath...

I don't know if I'm as concerned as you on this Left_of_Center. Spending time in the South Loop and Printer's Row has taught me that there is very little vehicular traffic in that part of the city. Sure, Well st. being connected will add some, but I doubt it's enough to earn the worries you have. I think because of the suburban hell to the east of the location and industrial wasteland just on the other side of the river it'll still be shielded from much traffic. Maybe years down the line when more people know about it, it'll become a shortcut, but I'm not worried. Most people will use public transit and their feet to get there

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development????? Where the "Planning" is silent?

Yes, I'd like to have 14th as well, but the elevation is a tricky matter because the Metra tracks are descending there, so they cross 14th at only about +3. You'd have to dig down to -15 or so to get 14th through. Now you've got 500 feet of 14th that's below ground level, so what kind of streetscape can it possibly have?

I'm not sure what you're talking about in terms of the general lack of traffic, but at the moment Clark, Harrison, Polk, etc. is hell on earth traffic-wise. I think much of this is, hopefully, temporary as all the traffic that hasn't been able to enter the loop off of the northbound Ryan for years now has found its way to the Chinatown feeder ramp and them up Clark. There are periods where it can take me 20-25 minutes to get from LSD to the corner of Clark and Harrison.

Not the part of the South Loop(outside of Clark) I'm concerned about or that would affect this development really so... Also you are talking East West corridors, which don't feed into this development. Again, irrelevant, as well as talking about how bad rush hour traffic is, being that that's just a Chicago thing and not unique to those streets. Construction on the Jane Byrne is probably responsible for the Polk, Harrison issues anyway. Only Clark would be affected by this change, but for the best, since it wouldn't have to take Wells southbound traffic anymore

Yeah even if you wanted additional East/west streets, I’m not sure there’s anything to connect to between Roosevelt and 15th. Within the site itself, the park allows for continuous connectivity from east to west, at least for pedestrians.

I think the traffic generated by this new development is entirely contingent on how auto-oriented Related chooses to go. The fact they are willing to spend a 9-digit sum on a new subway station suggests they are serious about transit orientation and low parking ratios.

Obviously there will still be Loop-bound cut-through traffic on Wells through the site, but I don’t see a lot of traffic on the other streets that would justify a full grid or wide collector streets. Compare to Lakeshore East, the internal roads are lightly used because the heavy traffic is routed around the perimeter on Wacker/LSD/Randolph/Columbus. The internal streets don’t form useful through routes, so they only serve vehicles with origins/destinations inside the site. There is a similar situation at the 78 with Clark, 18th, Roosevelt, and the new Wells.

Not irrelevant since it is you who mentioned familiarity with Printer's Row which is dead center of the area I'm talking about. Traffic is horrendous, and not just at rush hour.

I guess I've just never noticed this :/ It's always dead when I'm roaming there. I also don't drive almost ever, so that might be a major factor in my selective bias

May 16, 2018

PD submitted on City Clerk: https://chicago.legistar.com/Legisla...vanced&Search=

Highlights
-Maximum 10,000 units (Assuming average 2.5 people per unit, max density is 258,064 ppl/sq mi)
-On average ~0.4 parking ratio
-FAR 5.6
-PD is for phase 1 of the project

Phase 1 consists of new roads, a river wall, and the relocation of the Metra tracks so that Lasalle St can be built on top at a later phase
https://i.imgur.com/YEN8MqP.png

Here's a general idea of the streets planned for the final phase:
https://i.imgur.com/fMjZVoh.png

Interesting, looks like there will be another road connection between (upper) Clark St and LaSalle, aligned roughly with where you'd expect to find 12th Pl. The connections along 13th St and 14th St and LaSalle look to be pedestrian only.

I still think it would be prudent for the planners to put in another street that connects Wells and LaSalle other than just 15th.

That would cut the park in half... no thanks, I've had enough of that annoying shit at Grant Park

The street connections for this site plan are pretty good, all things considered. Certainly better than the shitshow that is Dearborn Park (demolish that place, already!). I'm quite pleased to see this.

Once the 78 comes to life, that 2 story Target is going look like even more of an under-utilization of the intersection. Potential for redevelopment in 10 years, maybe? 20?

Of course the same is true of Dearborn Park, but that one would require the buyout of many property owners...

It wouldn't be cutting the park in half. If the street oriented near 13th was extended eastward to meet Wells, it would only cut off the small northern tip of the park. I think its a fair compromise for accessibility and traffic flow.

I dont think it can be at 13th because of the ramps to Roosevelt. I think you could only really do it at 14th, and if you do that i think you need to make 14th go all the way through to Wabash

^ According to the plans posted by Randomguy, there appears to be an intersection planned for upper Clark a bit north of where 13th St would be on the grid (13th Pl perhaps?) that connects Clark to the to be constructed LaSalle St.

Making an intersection right before a ramp is kind of an awful idea though...

The intersection, complete with installed traffic signals, already exists (you can even see it in the photo above with jersey barriers in the middle of it)... I would assume that once it is turned on, the signals would be coordinated with Roosevelt...

It being in place doesn't make it any less bad of an idea...

Well, the bottom line is that it was the only possibility of an intersection between Roosevelt and 15th with out some very serious compromises (i.e. tunnels)... it will work fine if the lights are coordinated...

Crain's reports the Related is proposing 10,000 units on-site. With 62 acres, using the downtown unit-to-occupant ratio that's a density of over 150,000 people per square mile. Of course it's only over about a tenth of a square mile, but still - pretty cool.