[nomarandlee]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...,6148755.story

Lakefront bridge proposals are moving slowly

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published January 31, 2007


There was optimism in the air two years ago when the City of Chicago held a lakefront pedestrian bridge competition and announced winners for five sites -- North Avenue, Lake Shore Drive at the Chicago River, 35th Street, 41st Street and 43rd Street.

Not much visible has happened since then, much to the relief of historic preservationists who want to save the existing North Avenue Bridge, a 1940s classic with an elongated steel arch. Meanwhile, just a year after introducing the idea, the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 won city approval for a pedestrian bridge designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano that will span busy Monroe Drive. Private donors last year gave $14 million for the 620-foot-long bridge that will link the museum's under-construction Modern Wing with Millennium Park.

"Private pocketbooks are easier to pry open than public pocketbooks," said Brian Steele, a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation, explaining the relatively slow pace of the city-sponsored bridges.

City transportation officials, it turns out, are grinding forward on the South Side pedestrian bridges selected in the design competition. They have commissioned preliminary engineering studies for those spans -- a curving, single-tower suspension bridge at 35th Street by Teng, a Chicago architectural and engineering firm, and a pair of S-shaped bridges for 41st and 43rd Streets by Chicago architects Cordogan, Clark & Associates.

The combined cost of the studies is about $2 million. Ground for these bridges may not be broken until 2009 or 2010, Steele said. Developers in the reviving North Kenwood and Oakland neighborhoods consider the new bridges crucial to improving lakefront access from the areas--and, thus, their real estate prospects.

Less clear is the fate of the other winning designs: the Lake Shore Drive pedestrian bridge, by Wight & Company with Edward Windhorst Architects, a moveable span that echoed historic Chicago River bridges with a single swooping truss, and a replacement North Avenue Bridge, by PSA-Dewberry's Chicago office, which called for a boldly curving profile inspired by sand dunes.

The city hasn't commissioned preliminary engineering studies for either bridge, Steele said, adding that they were always lower on the priority list than the South Side bridges.

The winning design for the Lake Shore Drive bridge, he added, does not rule out architect Santiago Calatrava's proposal for a towering, cable-stayed bridge at the same location because the city is not contractually obligated to build the competition winners. Calatrava included the bridge in his latest plans for the 2,000-foot Chicago Spire, which would rise nearby.

Saying that much has changed with the site, including the Chicago Spire proposal and the planned development of nearby DuSable Park, Steele said city officials would be open to reviewing Calatrava's concept. But so far, he added, "we simply don't have enough detail to know whether it's something to move forward with."

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bkamin@tribune.com



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