Planning Commissioner Christopher Hill calls the new, city-blessed plan for the crucial, tourist-magnet corridor between Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier a “de-Manhattanization” that significantly reduces density of the crucial area.
Manhattan it may not be, but it won’t be an ode to pastoral tranquility, either. In the next few years, a swath of land that is now mostly parking lots could become a buzzing hive of activity filled with thousands of new residents, tourists and fun-seekers, under approvals given by the Chicago Plan Commission.
And they will be paralleled by building programs almost as ambitious just west of the Magnificent Mile along the same axis. Already, John Buck Co. has begun to erect a complex of condos, hotels, entertainment venues and retail shops including a Nordstrom’s department store, and that is only one of several mixed-use projects planned for River North.
All in all, in one of the most-concentrated building booms in downtown Chicago in decades, developers are mulling projects that would put as many as 15 high-rises on a broad area east of North Michigan Avenue along the north bank of the Chicago River in what was once the Loop’s forgotten back yard.
The plan commission’s approval of the biggest project for the area reflects a compromise between the city and developers that took almost a year to hammer out. But it looks like the city did most of the compromising.
Indeed, developer Dan McLean, who will be doing the lion’s share of the building to the east of Michigan, said his project has “really not changed that much” from his original proposal, which raised fears of a complex of tall, dark, congested canyons.
The strip will probably be airier and lighter than it might have in previous plans, but it is bound to be busy, with a total of 37 new movie screens, possibly more than 1,000 new hotel rooms and potentially more than 2,000 new housing units.
That continues to worry the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents even though the area citizens’ group endorsed the development compromise.
The organization would really like developers to hold off and see how all the major projects in River North and the east-of-Michigan corridor will work together, but don’t want to be branded as anti-growth, said George Sikokis, head of the group’s transportation committee.
“We’re still terribly concerned,” said Sikokis. “Will this area get suffocated?”
The prospect of traffic congestion has led to the formation of a transportation management association, a public-private panel to be partly funded by McLean, Buck and developer R.M. Chin, who plans a large multiuse project adjacent to McLean’s.
They, other future developers in the area and the city will be charged with providing solutions to what promise to be some major traffic problems.
The compromise agreed to in mid-June does spread out the skyline somewhat, creating more space between buildings than allowed for in McLean’s first proposal for his 13-acre River East project by adding pedestrian plazas.
It also cuts out one condominium building of a string of three that would have created a wall along the river, leaving two separated by a plaza with access to the river esplanade.
The total number of condo units in that phase of riverside condos was reduced from 350 to 250, while a string of townhomes at their base was shaved from 20 to 18 units.
The main structure, River East Center, is preserved substantially intact, with a 620-unit, 600-plus-foot apartment tower and a 456-room, 300-foot Embassy Suites hotel joined at the base by a parking garage and retail center including a 21-screen movie complex. The original hotel plan was larger.
That complex, bounded by Columbus Drive, Grand Avenue, Illinois Street and McClurg Court, is set to be started in September and finished in 2000. Completion of the riverside condo buildings, which run east of McClurg, is expected in 1999.
A second phase of River East, which could be started as soon as 2000, involves a complex with two 600-foot-tall residential buildings and a parking structure on land now occupied by parking lots and the former Kraft Foods building, which is being used by the Chicago Police Department.
The Police Department could move out in a couple of years and the city has agreed to vacate a small street east of the Kraft building called Peshtigo Court so he can build on or over it, McLean said.
McLean, however, cautioned that the second phase plans are tentative, especially for an apartment building that would be across McClurg Court–and an intervening plaza–from the River East Center apartments. “If there’s still demand, we’ll build a second one,” he said.
Future plans could also include a 540-foot-tall residential building for senior citizens at Ogden Slip just west of Lake Shore Drive, and another 350-foot-tall condo building just south of that, at the river’s edge.
McLean and city planners wrangled over the shape of some of the buildings, finally agreeing not to restrict their height so they could be less bulky at the base, eating up less land and allowing for better views.
McLean said he feels “fine” about the development plan, even though it slashed the amount he could build from about 10 million square feet to about 7 million square feet.
“We never expected to build as much as the original planned development allowed. It’s a compromise plan that we can live with,” he said.
“I’m happy that McLean’s happy,” responded Hill. “It shows that we can deal with different issues and not end up with a series of lawsuits.”
In addition to McLean’s projected eight high-rises, developer Chin is planning two more, a residential building and a hotel, in the block immediately west of the River East Center block.
The concept for that project, called Grand Pier Center, includes a 500-room hotel, a residential building of a similar size to McLean’s, a 16-screen movie theater, parking and retail space that could house a Dominick’s Finer Foods store.
Meanwhile, just across Grand Avenue from Chin’s block, apartment management and development firm Draper & Kramer is reportedly planning a 40-story residential tower. And two other developers with land just west of Lake Shore Drive in the corridor are also mulling projects.
Moreover, Newsweb Corp. owns a 2.5 acre parcel of land between Illinois Street and the Sheraton Chicago Hotel that could be developed with two more high-rises, most likely including another hotel.
Charles Gross, Newsweb’s chief financial officer, said a mixed-use complex involving hotel, office and residential uses is being considered, but that no conclusions have been reached.
“We’re happy that the zoning has become clearer, because that makes it easier for folks to go ahead,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a very attractive part of town.”
