Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
I'm afraid I don't follow you. It takes more than just an available space to make a good plaza. There are no heavy pedestrian flows across the space, no nearby big office or residential buildings. It isn't fronted by any public or semipublic buildings. It gets no sun in the morning and in the winter it will be heavily shadowed by the Apparel Mart. East Bank users tend to hurry in and out by auto or taxi early or late in the day. So what would make it a good place for a plaza?
|
I don't know how much time you spend in that area, but the pedestrian and bike traffic I see on Kinzie is pretty heavy compared to the other east-west streets in River North because of the Kinzie bridge. Furthermore, if the parking lot across from that slice were developed so that it had things facing the plaza, it would add more than enough action to liven it up. And the space that Rumba currently occupies could pretty easily be configured to take advantage of an adjacent plaza.
Finally, as for sun, it should get plenty of sun during the summer and Daley Plaza is shaded pretty much year-round, and especially dark during the winter. Since that's such a big disadvantage perhaps you should go notifiy the City that Christkindlmarket will be a total disaster to have there, and that Mariano Park is total crap, too, because nobody would ever use a park in Chicago with a highrise directly south of it. /sarcasm
In other words, I think you're completely off-base. That site would get far more traffic than most neighborhood plazas, far more sun than other existing plazas, year-round, and I don't see what your problem is with it. The idea that every new plaza should have to be a destination plaza or have the foot traffic levels of North Michigan Avenue is patently absurd. I live a 10 minute walk from there, and I'm not the only person who sometimes walks to that vicinity just to look at the view from the bridge - there are always people there on the bridge looking at the view. If there were a plaza in that space, people could see the view and then hang out in the plaza for a while. If the massive parking lot across the street were developed, people from there would use it. People scurry to and from the EBC mainly exactly because there is nothing else to do in the area - so what's wrong with giving them something to do?
Prev
Linear Mode
