I'm sitting in my car across the street from Wrigley right now...
Regarding the huge development across the street:
I wanna go on record as saying I'm on board with the development on the Addison side. I've thought about it and changed my mind; there's nothing that I see about the Starbucks building that would be a huge loss IMO. After seeing this, I'm on board:
However, I'm still worried about the overall scale of the first floor retail. It's so big that I'm afraid it'll be too imposing and out of scale with what's there now. This isn't the North and Clybourn area, and I really wish the ground floor was scaled down so as to minimize it's impact on the street.
lakeview.patch.com
Also, I'm still vehemently opposed to the Clark street side of the project. I stand by my original complaint. I just can't imagine Clark without all the character that exists there now. Goose Island and the Red Ivy building are both really nice, but more importantly, they feel natural and add character and warmth to the street. What I see here is an oppressively big WALL of monotonous and sterile brick and glass. And it's disturbingly out of scale. It's a 3 story monster that abruptly starts and then stops with zero consideration or attention given to its neighbors. Like I said before, I have no problem with the apartments behind it, but the idea of this ruining Clark St depresses me. I really feel like more pressure should have been put on the developer to redesign the Clark street wall in a more appropriate scale!