CHICAGO | General Developments

[the urban politician]

^ What a silly comment.

Absolutely nothing throw away or suburban about these storefronts.

[i_am_hydrogen]

Originally Posted by lawfin

Stop the despoilment of our city by this throw away suburban style shit

Save this comment for these proposed developments at Weed Street:

Originally Posted by spyguy

Kingsbury and Weed


Weed Street development

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ What is that cladding, exactly? Is that some sort of stone or concrete?

Looks like limestone or really fancy concrete.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by i_am_hydrogen

Save this comment for these proposed developments at Weed Street:

Agreed, now this is hideous!

[lawfin]

Originally Posted by i_am_hydrogen

Save this comment for these proposed developments at Weed Street:

Jeezuz.....that is worst nightmare kind of schlock....my god

I have all but given up hope that the north / clybourn / halsted area will ever be anything but "exurbia in urbe"

I don't recall who is the alderman there?

[J_M_Tungsten]

God that is just promoting driving to that area!!! I can just see it now... Hundreds of cars will be lined up to turn in to the parking lot causing major traffic delays on the road. The idiots will circle the 50 car parking lot at 2 mph thinking their BMW suv should get the closest spot to the store of their choosing. Traffic will be slowed down by the same BMW owner who waited 10 minutes for a spot that never opened up while cutting off traffic on the main road. Clusterf**k. The End.

Edit- I wrote that before I looked back at the rendering and realized that they have a BMW suv in the rendering HAHAHA !!!

[Beta_Magellan]

Agreed—the area’s enough of an auto clusterfuck as-is. Isn’t there some way they could rotate this building so the parking’s behind the shops, keeping a constant streetfront? Hell, that’s what they were able to do in suburban Milwaukee—can’t they get that right here? Of course, that building’s a bank-and-condo complex, not a retail site, and it’s architecture’s nothing breathtaking but at least it offers something slightly more pleasant towards the sidewalk! Suburban Milwaukee has better urban design than Burnham’s town! This is just a typical Chicago urban strip mall, but with more than one story.

Anyway, are we ever going to outgrow the concrete ultra-simplified main street classicism? I actually thought I saw a Borders sign on that render until I looked more closely and realized it was just my Pavlovian response to early twenty-first century commercial architecture.

[ardecila]

This sucks compared to the original design:



The large building in the back was intended for a department store, and was designed to support a future highrise above it.

In the new rendering, the "Freemont Cafe" building is at the same corner where Sangria is now (southwest corner Weed/Fremont).

[OhioGuy]

Originally Posted by lawfin

God this is shit! Looks like it belongs in streets of Woodfield or Oakbrook.....
Not some 1-1.5 blocks to a L stop.

Stop the despoilment of our city by this throw away suburban style shit

I don't get it. It looks fine to me.

[the urban politician]

Actually, while I'm not a fan of the Weed St redevelopment, it's not nearly as bad as I had expected when Spyguy first said (a few months ago) that it had been redesigned.

The fact that the parking lot is so small almost guarantees that it will likely remain full all of the time, and if they stick with the design in the rendering, still makes it a pretty pedestrian-friendly development, sort of like a courtyard retail building. The building in the first rendering provided by Spyguy is, I believe, to occupy a tiny triangular site so it will also probably be fine from an urban-design standpoint.

[J_M_Tungsten]

^^^Umm I can get on board with you about the building on Milwaukee and Honore, but this one looks like an addition to Geneva Commons, plain and simple. This project is another example of the suburbanization of our urban fabric. "Bring your cars down to Best Buy, and after that, take the wife and kids to Applebee's" that's what I hear when I see this rendering.

[Rizzo]

New roof goes on the Mather Building

Source: Me

http://www.loopnet.com/xNet/MainSite...&FromPPPP=true

[ChiTownCity]

nice vantage point

[Rizzo]

^ Thanks. I like to eat lunch from this spot in warmer weather.

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten

God that is just promoting driving to that area!!! I can just see it now... Hundreds of cars will be lined up to turn in to the parking lot causing major traffic delays on the road. The idiots will circle the 50 car parking lot at 2 mph thinking their BMW suv should get the closest spot to the store of their choosing. Traffic will be slowed down by the same BMW owner who waited 10 minutes for a spot that never opened up while cutting off traffic on the main road. Clusterf**k. The End.

Edit- I wrote that before I looked back at the rendering and realized that they have a BMW suv in the rendering HAHAHA !!!

That area scares me . 4/5 of the times I've been there, I've feared death. During the snow, I had to walk in the right lane of North Ave. I had no choice despite that I tried to walk through the snowbanks, but only fell through. On a bike you'll just have people cutting close to you. And forget the sidewalks... they are far too narrow. It became a piecemeal suburban mess, that was destined to be situated on a wide suburban arterial, not a two lane city street.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ What a silly comment.

Absolutely nothing throw away or suburban about these storefronts.

They're not throw-away, but just because they're not a strip mall doesn't mean they're not suburban. They're nice suburban, but they're still suburban and are reflective of suburban development in nearly any city in the world.

[EarlyBuyer]

^^^^

Great shot Hayward. I've been wondering what was going on there.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Hayward

That area scares me . 4/5 of the times I've been there, I've feared death. During the snow, I had to walk in the right lane of North Ave. I had no choice despite that I tried to walk through the snowbanks, but only fell through. On a bike you'll just have people cutting close to you. And forget the sidewalks... they are far too narrow. It became a piecemeal suburban mess, that was destined to be situated on a wide suburban arterial, not a two lane city street.

^ Yeah, to this day I just don't get what the city is thinking on this one. Why aren't they at least coming up with a set of 'North/Clybourn district development guidelines' or something of the sort? I mean, they've created development guidelines for so many other areas of the city, I just don't understand why they are sitting on their thumbs on this one.

There is so much to be done that can make this district more pedestrian-friendly and aesthetically pleasing while still providing parking and encouraging private development. After all, this is adjacent to uber-rich Lincoln Park--it's not some retail desert on the south side that is desperate for stores.

[lawfin]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Actually, while I'm not a fan of the Weed St redevelopment, it's not nearly as bad as I had expected when Spyguy first said (a few months ago) that it had been redesigned.

The fact that the parking lot is so small almost guarantees that it will likely remain full all of the time, and if they stick with the design in the rendering, still makes it a pretty pedestrian-friendly development, sort of like a courtyard retail building. The building in the first rendering provided by Spyguy is, I believe, to occupy a tiny triangular site so it will also probably be fine from an urban-design standpoint.

Well I guess we have to rename you the exurban politician; or perhaps the poster formally know as the urban politician.

ex-urban wisconsin is rubbing off one you


I have been trying access the City's gis app for zoning but am having trouble downloading the map data.....anyone else try it and have similar problems. I was trying yo find out the zoning of the parcel at honore and milwaukee....I though it was B-x-x classification. Which would allow for a more intense use than the single story suburban shit that is planned.

And given that its about a 500 foot walk to the L makes it even more insidious


Arlington heights has better planning integration with transportation than this city does by a mile......I am really sorrowing on the state of planning in this city; we have the 2nd best transportation infrastructure in the US and we have just about the worst land use integration with that asset that I can think of in the US as well......Chicago is a joke when it comes to this; its as if the powers that be want to turn Chicago into a western style auto dung heap

[the urban politician]

^ Then talk to your Alderman, call the city.

Why attack me? Clearly this forum is irrelevant when it comes to changing city policy.

Before you joined this forum many of us formed an organization to do exactly what you are pushing for--encourage density around transit and counter some of the arguments coming from NIMBY's. There were a couple of meetings but the organization eventually dissolved, likely due to the real estate crash.

But an organization such as that is still as important as ever, if you ask me. Now, instead of proposing condo developments, developers are switching over to strip malls. And yet Daley and the city do absolutely nothing about it. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to say, "if you want to build on prime real estate, you need to build it this way"? I mean sheesh, doesn't anybody from the Planning or Zoning Departments visit these forums? I find that very hard to believe...

[SamInTheLoop]

^ I'm honestly not sure what Chicago's Planning and Zoning Departments do - that sounds harsh but it's certainly not meant as a criticism to the folks - I'm sure many of them talented and hard-working - who work in those depts. It's more a sad commentary on their toothlessness in the system - driven by politics, aldermanic pandering and prerogative........is there another big city planning dept in the US that has as little influence as Chicago's does? Hopefully someone in Rahm's inner circle gets him to recognize that there needs to be something of a shift in balance away from politics, privelage, pandering and purposelessness (I realize it will never shift completely away, but there indeed needs to be a rebalancing) and toward planning, policy, principles and predictability.......and hopefully he acts on it!!