When developer Ronald Grais unveiled a plan two years ago to build a parking structure on State Street in the heart of the Loop, the chorus of protests was loud enough to drown out the nearby elevated trains.
The city Planning Department was against it; Friends of Downtown didn`t like it; the Metropolitan Planning Council was opposed, and so was the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. When the Chicago Plan Commission weighed in with its disapproval, voting 6-3 against the plan, Grais chose not to appeal to the City Council, where agreement with the Plan Commission is considered routine. The matter appeared dead.
But recently, Grais` controversial blueprint for the southeast corner of State and Washington Streets-south of the Marshall Field & Co. department store-has been resuscitated in what Metropolitan Planning Council officials are calling ”the most blatant example of bad government that we`ve seen.”
With the help of some of Mayor Eugene Sawyer`s closest personal and political allies, the 2-year-old plan has been revived and sent to the City Council`s Committee on Zoning where, with the backing of some key aldermen, it now has a new chance at winning approval.
For Sawyer, who is preparing for a difficult re-election campaign, the development poses one of the tougher planning choices of his 8-month tenure, forcing him to decide between the wishes of friends and those of planning officials who contend the parking garage will have disastrous effects on traffic in the already-congested Loop.
Mayoral press secretary Monroe Anderson says Sawyer is ”indignant”
about the revival of the plan for a 400-space parking garage above a storefront retail facility and opposes overriding the recommendation of the Plan Commission, but if the mayor lobbies for its defeat in the Zoning Committee, he would be taking a stand against some important allies. Among them are Arnold Kanter, Sawyer`s lawyer, and Robert Hallock, one of the directors of the mayor`s political fundraising committee-both of whom have represented Grais in seeking approval for the development. Grais also has contributed $2,500 to Sawyer`s campaign fund.
Moreover, if approved, the Loop development would be financed by the Independence Bank of Chicago, which is in Sawyer`s 6th Ward and whose chairman, Alvin Boutte, was one of the chief sponsors of Sawyer`s first major fundraiser this year.
But allowing approval of the project could be equally risky for Sawyer, sparking the ire of influential planning authorities who maintain that Grais and his backers have perverted the city`s planning process in pushing ahead with a development they thought they had long ago buried.
”It is an insult to everyone who worked on this issue-pro and con-for months and months back in 1986,” Mitchell Kandon, senior planner for the Metropolitan Planning Council, recently wrote to the Zoning Committee in a stinging attack of the proposal. ”If such an action is not illegal, it should be.”
Grais declined to say why he is pushing the development again under a new administration, maintaining it is ”inappropriate” to comment before the Zoning Committee votes.
”When it`s over, I will tell you more than you ever cared to know about it since I love to talk about my developments,” he said. Of the planning council`s criticism, he said: ”Their imagination knows no bounds. They`re certainly free to express their opinion, and they always do.”
In recommending against the development in October, 1986, the Plan Commission sided with opponents, including Elizabeth Hollander, city planning commissioner, who contended the addition of a parking facility in that area would drastically increase traffic congestion along Loop thoroughfares and severely interfere with pedestrian traffic on the south side of Washington Street.
Though many of the plan`s detractors praised Grais as a developer and admired architect Stanley Tigerman`s design, they predicted that a glut of cars entering and exiting the facility would choke Loop traffic.
Among the few proponents of the plan was the Greater State Street Council which, according to president Sara Bode, has since withdrawn its support because of fears about traffic congestion.
With so few fans and an unfavorable decision from the Plan Commission, the city`s official planning review body, administration officials and civic organizers were not surprised when Grais elected in 1986 not to go to the City Council for review.
But the project suddenly resurfaced last month, when a proposal to rezone the site to permit Grais` development appeared on the agenda for the July 26 meeting of the Zoning Committee-the first meeting since Sawyer ally Ald. Keith Caldwell (8th) became chairman.
”Suddenly we got a call from someone in City Hall saying, `You won`t believe what`s just been added to the Zoning Committee agenda,` ” said Mary Decker, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Council.
Caldwell said the agenda is one he inherited from Ald. Danny Davis
(29th), who was ousted as committee chairman when Sawyer and his council supporters reorganized the committees last month. Davis said he was obliged to schedule the proposal when Ald. Ronald Robinson (6th), Sawyer`s replacement on the council, asked that he do so in early July.
”When the Plan Commission turns down an item like this, that`s generally the end of it right there,” Davis said. ”But Robinson came to me and said he wanted it on the agenda. He said he had reviewed the proposal and thought it should be done.”
Though it is unusual for a Chicago alderman to involve himself in zoning matters outside of his ward, Davis said, ”I didn`t have to ask him why he was interested in a development in the 1st Ward when he is alderman of the 6th. Some things are fairly apparent.”
But Robinson, a longtime member of Sawyer`s 6th Ward political organization, maintained he has not spoken to Sawyer about the plan. He said he took an interest in the Loop development when an official from Independence Bank, eager to arrange financing for the project, asked him to intercede.
”I was merely doing it as a gesture for the bank since they`re in my ward,” said Robinson, who added that he was unaware the matter had been rejected by the Plan Commission. ”Now that I know that, I`m not going to do anything more.”
Though Kanter`s law firm had been working on behalf of Grais, Sawyer`s personal attorney said he referred the project to Hallock to avoid public criticism of a conflict of interest. Both Kanter and Hallock appeared at City Hall when Grais went before the Zoning Committee last month to pitch his project.
Ald. Fred Roti (1st), in whose ward the development would be built, spoke in favor of the plan at the committee hearing. But, following a request from Sharon Gilliam, Sawyer`s chief executive, he asked that further testimony and a vote on the project be deferred until at least September.
Gilliam said she was unaware the committee was going to be considering the proposal that afternoon and, upon hearing the proceedings through her office intercom, went to the council chambers ”to make sure that this is not just speeded through.
”The mayor`s position is not that he`s totally against it, but that he doesn`t want this thing rushed through without consideration,” Gilliam said. Press secretary Anderson, though, quoted Sawyer as saying, ”It`s not something I support.” According to Anderson, the project`s supporters, despite their ties to the mayor, were acting ”without telling him about it or asking his advice. People are out there freelancing.”
In May, a subcommittee of the Plan Commission studying downtown parking policies completed its draft report. Among its recommendations is a call for a prohibition on all new parking facilities in the Loop`s core.
But Hallock said Grais, in renewing his push for the development, is not motivated by a desire to beat the deadline on such a prohibition.
”If there`s any urgency in it, it`s simply that my client wants to get on with this,” Hallock said.
Hallock said that ”while it is true that there are people involved with Grais who are involved in the mayor`s campaign,” he has not spoken to Sawyer to ask for his support of the development. Hallock also said worries about traffic congestion are exaggerated.
