CHICAGO | General Developments

[headcase]

Originally Posted by Standpoor

Lake Street is underutilized. Its pedestrian counts are ridiculously low and the traffic counts are low but not significantly below the other East/West streets. Some bridges see pedestrian counts equal to Lake Street in fifteen minutes during the afternoon rush. Granted those bridges only see one way traffic/pedestrians without a lot of crossing but I think that the area can absorb the increase in both pedestrians and traffic with slight improvements, even though a pedestrian bridge or a fully complete riverwalk would be nice.

Because of the overhead tracks, lake is probably never going to be heavily trafficked by pedestrians.

SSDD

[denizen467]

^ Standpoor, thanks for the research; my main concern with Lake had to do with rush hour only, and will not be fully realized until there are actually office towers with their employees streaming along either side of the river across Lake a few years from now. Also, the vehicle statistics reveal that Lake has usage not much less than the other streets; in fact, given how high Randolph's number is, you could construe them to say that the number just one block north along Lake would be higher too if it actually had enough capacity during rush hour. (Admittedly though, Randolph has direct access onto the expressway and therefore more demand.) On several occasions this summer it took around 15 minutes in a vehicle to go the three or four blocks from Kinzie/Wells via Wacker to Lake/Canal, but let's see what happens when Upper and Lower Wacker are fully reopened.

Looks like in a couple hours the SSP forum may be unavailable through Monday morning?

[MayorOfChicago]

Originally Posted by denizen467

(It would be interesting to see how much simply making Lake one-way would address this.)

Given the new development in that area and the traffic concerns, here would be my quick fix to help the flow:

Lake Street one-way eastbound starting at Des Plaines.

Kinzie Street one-way westbound from LaSalle to Des Plaines.

Another item I've noticed:

Rebuild the Grand Ave Bridge to 4 lanes. Have Grand Ave contine on as a one-way street west of Wells straight to the bridge. At the bridge it would have a right turn lane, and two lanes going across the bridge. Have the two eastbound lanes from the bridge turn right without stopping on a now one-way southbound Kingsbury. Have the two lanes both turn left a block down onto Illinois (with the option to go straight south on Kingsbury if you wished from the right lane), which would run one-way east to Lakeshore (it's already mostly one-way).

You'd get one-way traffic on Grand and Illinois all the way through River North, and you'd have them meet up at the Grand Ave bridge without any traffic stops. It would clear up the confusion/turns/congestion around Wells for both of those streets.

[MayorOfChicago]

I just walked by the old Borders on State and saw that Old Navy is moving there? How'd I miss that? Timeline?

[PKDickman]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ The real tragedy is that this site is zoned RS-3 to begin with, at least according to Curbed Chicago.

I mean, it's ridiculous that a developer should have to seek a zoning change to build what is appropriate for this site.

The zoning on this site is a bigger mess than that.
Back in the day, 2002, the Western ave frontage was zoned C1-2 and the parcels that face Cortland was zoned R-3. These are consistant with the surrounding area.
Some time before 2004, all the parcels were rezoned R4 to accomodate a condo development. The development fell through and I think only one building got built.
In 2011 the Cortland facing parcels we rezoned back to RS-3, but the ones on Western were left as RT-4.

The developer does want a zoning change to B2-2 which gets him his bump in FAR without actually having to put commercial on the first floor.
His commercial space looks like little more than lipservice stuck on the front of a generic condo building.

A good argument could made for a b*-3 which could get him a 65 ft building, but he probably didn't want to spring for elevators.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by MayorOfChicago

I just walked by the old Borders on State and saw that Old Navy is moving there? How'd I miss that? Timeline?

There were articles awhile back about the existing Old Navy store a candidate for redevelopment. Maybe their moving while the current store gets demoed? Old Navy has I believe a few years left on their lease, but maybe some incentives sweetened the deal and now the developer may want a vacant building?

As for you traffic solution, I really oppose one-ways. Chicago needs to ask itself what it wants to be. Is downtown about people and mass transit, or about cars? Currently it serves both, and reasonably well. One ways facilitate faster traffic movement...your right. But they're also more dangerous and less pedestrian friendly.

What may sound like a perfect solution in this case just creates more problems.

[ChiPhi]

^^^
Gap has claimed (scroll to KNOWLEDGE GAP) they will not be vacating the location, only changing the "concept" -- bringing a different store in.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

I believe the long-awaited (and delayed) main announcment of retail and restaurant tenants at Roosevelt Collection is finally just around the corner - within the next couple weeks. Not sure exactly what the holdup has been (they've claimed in the media about waiting for a particular pre-leased percentage, not sure about that....it could be they've really wanted a particular tenant to be part of the announcement.....if so, I wonder whom that might be?

I was there the other day and they are starting work on the storefronts that used to be all that mural plastic/fabric stuff. They wouldn't be spending the money now if they haven't signed some leases.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by ChiPhi

^^^
Gap has claimed (scroll to KNOWLEDGE GAP) they will not be vacating the location, only changing the "concept" -- bringing a different store in.

The article says they are moving. I believe a developer bought the current location somewhat recently.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...w-location-gap

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...TATE/110329984

[ardecila]

As the article mentions, The Gap has a lease on the space that runs through 2017. The new owner of the building still has to abide by the terms of the lease, or incur substantial penalties. It doesn't matter whether The Gap/Old Navy is using the space or not. It sounds like The Gap will do something experimental - it might involve Threadless or 1969 jeans.

Georgetown is betting that the market for condos will improve significantly by 2017, and then they will probably redevelop the site. It sits in the Millennium Park submarket, which saw very strong condo sales before the crash, and has very profitable frontage on State. Georgetown's NY and Columbus projects have been pretty sophisticated, so I'm looking forward to this one.

[i_am_hydrogen]

Deming On The Green is under construction. I took these photos of the site yesterday. Today, when I walked by again, crews were busy at work.








Old design by Behnisch Architekten's

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by i_am_hydrogen

Deming On The Green is under construction. I took these photos of the site yesterday. Today, when I walked by again, crews were busy at work.








Old design by Behnisch Architekten's

Ah I remember this. Changed to look like a medical office building lol. The old design was a bit more interesting though I have no idea what the full glass facade at ground level looked into.

[ardecila]

I don't know how parking would have been handled but high-end apartment houses in Germany (architect was German) often have glass lobbies, especially when they are not on commercial/mixed-use streets.

Of course, IIRC it's also common and perfectly legal for Germans to rent apartments and use them as professional offices, so the building needs to maintain some decorum and be somewhat impressive in its communal spaces.

This doesn't apply to the Deming project but it seems like Behnisch was using a European template.

[denizen467]

^ This is across the street from LP 2550 a/k/a 2520, right?

I've asked this before but don't think there was an answer -- slightly to the west, there is/was a Children's Memorial Hospital facility at 467 Deming housed in a nearly-windowless concrete hulk around 10 stories tall. Has there ever been any news that this sucker is getting sold off or torn down? And if no, would anybody disagree (or have news/info to contradict) that its days must be numbered, given that Columbus Hospital and Children's Memorial are no longer around and far better-quality medical office space is available in myriad other locations, diminishing the value of its current use (while demand for luxury residential in the area is of course growing) ?

[k1052]

Originally Posted by denizen467

^ This is across the street from LP 2550 a/k/a 2520, right?

I've asked this before but don't think there was an answer -- slightly to the west, there is/was a Children's Memorial Hospital facility at 467 Deming housed in a nearly-windowless concrete hulk around 10 stories tall. Has there ever been any news that this sucker is getting sold off or torn down? And if no, would anybody disagree (or have news/info to contradict) that its days must be numbered, given that Columbus Hospital and Children's Memorial are no longer around and far better-quality medical office space is available in myriad other locations, diminishing the value of its current use (while demand for luxury residential in the area is of course growing) ?

It's their outpatient center which CMH said they were not going to move downtown, last I heard.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by k1052

I was there the other day and they are starting work on the storefronts that used to be all that mural plastic/fabric stuff. They wouldn't be spending the money now if they haven't signed some leases.

They've had many leases signed since at least early this year....I'm pretty sure they have over 15 done as of now....

[SamInTheLoop]

The design of the original proposal was so much better. The new design is flat-out drab and depressing, frankly.

[SamInTheLoop]

(not that I think that's what it will actually be called!)

Does anybody that lives by, or frequently passes the site know if site prep is yet underway? If not, I'd expect it will be within the next month, or 2 at most...

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

(not that I think that's what it will actually be called!)

Does anybody that lives by, or frequently passes the site know if site prep is yet underway? If not, I'd expect it will be within the next month, or 2 at most...

I've passed by and haven't see anything recently. Are they still planning to build at Division and Larrabee?

[the urban politician]

Apartment investor buys Uptown building for HQ

Good to see not only that direlect building across from the Wilson Yard Target get renovated, but 150 jobs added to the area in the process.

Real estate investment, development and management firm Cedar Street Cos. plans to move its headquarters to a long-vacant Uptown building it bought July 19 from the Salvation Army for $1.2 million. Cedar Street plans to gut the three-story, 38,000-square-foot retail and office building at 1025 W. Sunnyside Ave., across the street from the Wilson Yard Target store, said Managing Partner Alex Samoylovich. Cedar Street will add a fourth floor with about 10,000 square feet of offices for its 150 employees, as well as a green roof deck, and plans to move from its current offices at 351 W. Chicago Ave. by Jan. 1, he said. The firm is seeking tenants for ground-floor retail and offices on the second and third floors. Cedar Street owns about 1,600 apartments in and around Uptown and is under contract to buy another 400 units, Mr. Samoylovich said. Alexandria, Va.-based Salvation Army used the building as a community center before moving out in 2008, a spokeswoman said.