Over the objection of an adjacent parking deck owner, the Chicago Plan Commission on Thursday endorsed plans for what will be the city`s tallest garage-a 15-story behemoth at the southeast corner of Lake and Wells Streets. Motorists will make 7.5 complete circles on a spiral ramp in order to reach the top of the 840-space self-park building.
”Seven and a half turns is the tolerance point,” said Gordon Prussian, whose General Parking Corp. will operate the facility.
The $9 million structure, with a storefront at street level, will be developed by a limited partnership led by William Cocose, vice president of Mayfair Construction Co.
City planning officials praised the project, saying it will help relieve a shortage of parking caused by the boom in downtown office construction.
But their official verdict was panned by Theodore Novak, a prominent zoning lawyer who represents Richard Stein, developer of the nearby North Loop Transportation Center, a 1,200-space facility at 203 N. LaSalle St.
Novak argued that the commission should withhold approval until it formally adopts its own proposed report on downtown parking policies.”
The 33-page report calls for a ban on new parking lots and decks in a Loop ”core zone” where mid-day traffic congestion approaches gridlock. The proposed Wells-Lake self-park garage would be located just outside that zone, whose perimeter is a half-block inside that of the Loop elevated structure.
”All this work (studying Loop parking problems) will go for naught if we allow this project to go ahead today,” said Novak.
He added that cramped conditions under the elevated tracks at Wells and Lake made it the ”worst possible place” to build a huge parking structure.
Novak also criticized the way the commission handled the proposal, claiming that the final plans were unavailable to the public until a few hours before Thursday`s meeting. Moreover, Novak said, the commission did not have a quorum present in the City Council chambers to listen to the developer`s presentation or to the city`s rationale for approval. The project had enough votes to pass only because Ald. Sheneather Butler (27th), an ex-officio member, left a proxy vote.
Elizabeth Hollander, commissioner of planning, told Novak that he should turn his frustration into support for a new set of rules and procedures being considered by the commission. The new rules would require that a developer`s zoning application and the planning staff`s response be made available to the public five days before final commission action.
More than a year in the making, both the downtown parking guidelines and the new Plan Commission rules were touted earlier this week in a press release issued by Mayor Eugene Sawyer`s office. The reports will be considered at special Plan Commission meetings Jan. 26 for the parking rules and Feb. 16 for the commission procedures.
The two reports are part of a veritable parade of planning guidelines that Sawyer and his Department of Planning will unveil over the next two months. The publicity blitz was announced after Sawyer`s campaign adviser, Reynard Rochon, complained in an internal memo that Hollander hasn`t provided Sawyer with enough ”good news” to announce.
