Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
Looks like it's the whole corner site, the red brick apartment would be torn down. There's also mention of the tower podium containing parking and community space for the church. Seems like the church is a key partner in this venture, they may have even recruited Fifield.
Ideally this development scheme gets reversed so the tower ends up on the church's parking lot north of Maple, while the corner site south of Maple just becomes a church parking garage. Win win for everybody, it knocks out two surface lots, preserves views and gives Fifield a slightly bigger site with more flexibility for an efficient tower. They could even set it up so ALL the parking is south of Maple in a consolidated garage, and the tower could have a "tower in a park" design that fits LaSalle better with a soft touch.
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The parking lot on the NE corner of LaSalle and Maple is owned by a different church I believe (Church of the
Ascension).
The proposed location is on the SE corner, which is where the similarly named
Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral has its parking lot. It seems that both the small building right on the corner and the L shaped parking lot that wraps around it would be redeveloped under this proposal. The church has its greek fest in that parking lot every summer, which presumably would move into the community center portion of this proposal. That makes this a big win-win for the church and the developer.
The NE corner lot is also a potential development site. Since its only immediate neighbor is a car dealership, it would have an easier path without NIMBYs complaining about blocked views.