Posted Jul 17, 2026, 5:06 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Chicago
Posts: 2,830
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I'm sorry, but that concept for 1220 W Carroll is completely unacceptable for the location. We are planning for an eventual "downtown" Metra station immediately northwest of here, and on this prime location for what could be one of the best transit centric sites in the city, we see this waste of space?
There isn't even a ground floor function to engage the large quantity of pedestrians that would likely be walking through here in the future. Ground floor residential behind a front lawn of mowed grass? No thanks, keep in this in outlying neighborhoods or the suburbs. This is not even appropriate for a outlying neighborhood retail corridor. Sure, the rendering looks to offer a nice masonry facade, but that is lipstick on a pig.
The development scene in Chicago for the last few years truly has been a big disappointment for much of the time, but as we are seeing financing starting to flow to some of the projects we have been anticipating for a while, we can demand better. 400 N Elizabeth one block away is a go, proving we don't need coping to settle for such a low bar for future downtown development just because it is a "tough time". The city really should have a zoning overlay with density minimums if we are serious about spending a couple billion in public funds to modernize the A-2 rail junction and build a large new station here.
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