In 1984 when officials first announced plans for a $400 million research park in Evanston, the project was touted as a panacea for the city`s downtown economic development troubles and as a relief to taxpayers.
The Evanston/University Research Park, the first cooperative venture between the city and Northwestern since the school was founded 135 years ago, is designed to attract initially at least one major corporation and many smaller companies with its $26 million state-of-the-art cooperative research laboratory that is now being built.
Mayor Joan Barr has said the project will provide much needed property tax revenues and up to 4,000 jobs within the next 10 years. But to do so, the city and university must overcome some vexing challenges, not the least of which is the deluge of regular protests from the residents of 31 homes and owners of some 14 businesses that are scheduled to be razed next year.
Most of the structures are on the park`s northern boundary along Emerson Street between Maple and East Railroad Avenues. Those two blocks plus southern boundary properties now occupied by a Dominick`s food store and a senior citizens activity center constitute the final 20 percent of the 26.5 acres within the park`s planned boundaries not yet owned by TOPCORP, the for-profit corporation formed by the city and university to acquire the land.
The nearly 60 residents are upset that their homes will be destroyed to make way for a parking garage and condominiums that, planners concede, are currently long-range hopes. The city has begun legal proceedings to condemn the homes of four landowners who refuse to sell.
Members of Park Watch, a coalition formed to oppose the research park, picketed for an hour Thursday night in front of Barr`s home, some wearing skeleton costumes and nuclear energy protective clothing.
A leader of the protest, lawyer Betty Burns Paden, who was born in the century-old family home on Emerson Street where she continues to live with her 87-year-old mother, said, ”My mother`s birthday is (this) month. If they play it right, they`ll knock it down on her birthday.
”She`s lived here for 60 years, and she`s spent most of her life paying for it. If they take it away from her, what will she have? Who is going to give an 87-year-old woman a mortgage?”
Barr said the city is offering homeowners fair market value and is prepared to relocate the mostly minority residents of rental property to other areas of Evanston. However, Rev. John Norwood said the city`s offer falls short.
”There is no place in Evanston they can buy for the prices they`re offering,” he said. ”When you take people`s property, what are you doing?
You are driving them away without using the word `unwanted`. . . They`re trying to force (blacks) back out of Evanston into Chicago.”
But Barr suggests that affordable properties do exist, and that those who were forced to move might receive rent subsidies in their new homes. ”There is no plan to get the people to move outside Evanston,” she said.
During both city council meetings in July protesters filled the council chambers, alternately citing Scripture and ridiculing council members who favor park development.
All of this seemed only to strengthen some council members` resolve. ”No one tells me what to do,” said Ald. Dennis Drummer. ”We have to be able to fight for property tax.”
The protests worry City Manager Joel Asprooth, who doesn`t expect them to end. ”I think it will be difficult for the council to conduct its business if we have continued periods of citizen comment. That could affect the running of city government. Obviously, it is going to take some aggressive public relations to ensure that people have the facts.”
He is supported by Northwestern officials, who hope industries are attracted to the park by the quality of research being done there by university faculty, providing a symbiotic relationship that has proved successful in other university towns, such as Stanford, Calif.
”The city has defined that area as a development area, and they had two other development projects fail,” said William Ihlanfeldt, NU vice president for institutional relations. ”This one has made tremendous progress even with the opposition that we have encountered.”
Ihlanfeldt said construction is well under way on the centerpiece of the park, the Basic Industry Research Laboratory that won federal funding from the Department of Energy through legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates
(D., Ill.). Although department sources said that the grant had no strings and that the laboratory will be controlled and operated by Northwestern, the contract itself has some Evanstonians worried that classified research or
”Star Wars” defense research could be conducted there.
But Ihlanfeldt said the university accepts no classified government research. And one department official said that in the appropriations contract for the laboratory, ”there was nothing that says you could not do Star Wars research at BIRL, but there is nothing that says you are going to do it. The chances you are going to do it are very, very slim.”
Others, worried about the lab`s effects on the environment, want an environmental impact statement on the park, which Barr said is not required by law and would cost the city $500,000. They have begun a petition drive to collect 6,000 signatures. If successful, Evanston voters would have the opportunity for a referendum vote to decide if the city should obtain an impact statement before spending additional public money on park development. It is clear that development for the downtown park will not come quickly, or easily.
It also is clear that city officials are going to have to deal with the protests before much further development. ”In many ways it is a political campaign,” Asprooth said. ”They have to do an extraordinary job in this case.”
