I attended the meeting. Nothing was shown that isn't already on the website, although they had a beautiful model that answered a lot of questions. No photos from me, forgot the camera. The overall tone was pretty constructive - the neighborhood residents accept the idea of a tower but they had pretty valid concerns about sidewalk capacity, access, the Canal grade crossing, and the construction staging.
- The interlocking tower will be "saved" - dismantled and placed into Park District storage for reassembly at a future park. I don't know how you dismantle a masonry structure without it all falling apart, and the city has put things away before never to see the light of day - the reliefs from the Ogden bridge come to mind.
- There will indeed be a big wall along Lake St. Supposedly Amtrak is insisting on high clearances for all new structures, but they can't do anything about the existing bridges and buildings (like the Lake St viaduct) that have low clearance. The Hines guy said something about electrification of the rail line but it sounded like speculation.
- The access to the park is as labyrinthine and convoluted as possible, so nobody will ever find it convenient to cut through. Access to the riverwalk level only happens at Lake (via the existing bridge house stair) or via Riverbend's existing riverwalk.
- Ventilation systems are being integrated into the deck structure to vent diesel fumes towards the riverwalk.
I encourage everyone to email Alderman Reilly and demand a northern access point to the Riverwalk. With such a stairway, the plaza could act as a defacto pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks and mitigate the dangers created at the grade crossing as pedestrian traffic increases, train traffic increases, and sight lines are cut off by the new deck.