At long last developers are poised to begin construction in one of the choicest expanses of single-owner real estate in Chicago-the blocks north of the Chicago River assembled by the American Medical Association.
Architectural plans made available to The Tribune indicate that the project will be of blockbuster dimensions. Office, hotel and apartment towers will rise alongside an east-west indoor mall that will invite shoppers to stroll its three-block length from Michigan Avenue to State Street.
But for all its potential, the multiblock AMA proposal raises some knotty, though familiar, problems in Chicago`s city planning.
For one thing, developers are proposing a major extension of the second-story deck system for people and cars leading away from upper Michigan Avenue. The same strategy was used by developers of Illinois Center and Cityfront Center, two comparably scaled developments east of Michigan Avenue on each side of the river.
Like those projects, early plans for the AMA development stress airy and urbane amenities on the upper level, such as skylights, benches and potted trees. Little is shown of the underworld below, at ground level. That`s because developers and city planners are still groping for ways to improve the dank reaches of lower Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive-places more suited for pigeon droppings than people, but places nonetheless that are spreading across downtown beneath new megaprojects like the AMA`s.
Then there is the matter of who will pay for upper-level streets-the city or the developer.
At Illinois Center, which won zoning approvals in 1969, this
”infrastructure” cost was split 50-50 between the developer and City Hall. At Cityfront Center, approved in 1985, Mayor Harold Washington`s cash-strapped administration forced developers to pay for all needed public works, including the new upper Illinois Street now under construction east of Michigan Avenue. Early indications are that the AMA developers are looking for something in between. One possibility is tax-increment financing, or TIF. With TIF, the project`s future property taxes would be used to retire bonds sold to build the needed platforms. For the AMA, the big item, estimated at $10 million, will be extending Illinois Street west from Michigan Avenue to Wabash Avenue. A big question in the weeks ahead is who will flinch, the developers or city planners. Elizabeth Hollander, city planning commissioner, is under orders to make downtown projects pay their own way. The city, moreover, is using TIF in the North Loop and might not want to divert more tax growth from its general funds.
Once those matters are resolved, developers of the AMA land promise to remake a large portion of the city`s ”River North” area into one of downtown`s most vibrant mixed-use districts.
The Chicago-based medical association moved its offices to the northwest corner of Grand Avenue and State Street in the 1920s. Years later it began buying surrounding properties, more for defensive reasons than anything else, since the seedy warehouse district was for decades shunned by developers. Now the AMA owns four entire blocks, and pieces of eight others, in what has become the red-hot River North district.
River North took off in the mid-`70s as a haven for art galleries, brassy restaurants and lawyers and architects intent on making loft offices of old factories.
After several false starts into the development business, AMA executives decided to sell the choicest three blocks in its collection-those bounded by Michigan, Grand, Illinois and State-to a partnership of two of the city`s most successful real estate developers. They are the John Buck Co. and Miller-Klutznick-Davis-Gray Co.
John Iberle, project manager for Buck, said the developers will, in a matter of weeks, approach City Hall seeking special zoning status for their entire $500 million mixed-use development.
The project will be anchored on the west, at State Street, by a 25-story office building, at least half of which already has been leased to the AMA as the professional group`s new international headquarters.
The western-most block also will contain a luxury apartment tower of 50 stories or more, Iberle said, along with an outdoor pedestrian plaza along the east side of State between the two new buildings.
Developers are still negotiating to arrange financing but don`t expect any problems for the initial phase.
At the opposite end of the project, along Michigan Avenue, the developers plan a low-rise shopping mall overlooking an east-west pedestrian arcade built on a platform above Grand Avenue, which would continue to function as a street.
Iberle said Buck/Miller is negotiating with the Marriott Hotel, on the north side of Grand at Michigan, to achieve two things. First, the now-blank Grand Avenue facade of the Marriott would be rebuilt to contain several levels of stores opening onto the north side of the east-west pedestrian mall over Grand. Marriott also would expand its hotel operations by building a tower containing 600 rooms and 350 luxury suites on AMA land on the east side of Rush Street between Grand and Illinois, formerly the location of the Corona Cafe restaurant.
Less is certain about the middle block, Iberle said, though preliminary plans call for stores along the east-west mall and a multilevel parking garage under a high-rise office and apartment tower along Illinois Street, which would be double-decked from Michigan to Wabash.
Perhaps the toughest part of the project from a design standpoint will be fashioning the east-west pedestrian spine that will start on Michigan, bridge Rush and Wabash and eventually descend to State Street and the outdoor plaza. For one thing, Iberle said, the linear mall will require a grand entranceway on Michigan Avenue to entice customers to the stores inside. But preliminary plans also show that developers want to build a huge meeting room for the hotel above the ceiling of the mall. That will make it harder to achieve the kind of dramatic, sky-lighted atrium capable of pulling strollers off Michigan Avenue.
Perhaps that is one reason why the developers have hired Kenzo Tange, widely regarded as Japan`s best architect, as chief designer and master planner of the complex. Chicago-based Shaw and Associates is the associate architect.
”We know the key is to create an interesting retail area,” said Iberle, ”that, and figuring out a way to step the project down from upper Michigan Avenue to grade at State Street.”
Iberle predicted construction will start on the new AMA office and attached apartment tower by mid-1988, with completion by early 1990. He said the other two blocks would be finished by 1991.
