When he was growing up, James Woodruff spent a lot of time in the country. He loved the open space. He enjoyed watching the seasons change–the bright mix of autumn leaves, the paper-white snow in winter.
The profession he chose in academic medicine was somewhat at odds, though, with his love of the outdoors. His job as a physician and teacher pretty much dictated that he live in a city, a setting Woodruff complains doesn’t provide much open landscape or breathing room.
“I thought it would be nice to live in a place where I didn’t see another building when I looked out the window,” said Woodruff.
Luckily, he and his wife, Monica, also a physician and teacher, found a house for sale last year that was next to a wide open space: A four-bedroom row house that faced Kenwood Park in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. They bought it.
“When you look out our window, you can see the houses on the other side of the park, but they are pretty far away,” said Woodruff, who enjoys the unobstructed view.
Chicagoans like parks. They give us the heady feeling that only a shoe stands between us and a barefoot walk in the grass, even though we may never indulge the fantasy. Parks are a link to our natural history. And parks give us a place to play.
Park usage is up, according to park district officials. In fact, parks are so popular there’s a push to create more of them. The City of Chicago recently enacted an ordinance to provide more open space. Plenty of suburbs already have similar rules in place to help increase the number of parks, preserves and open green areas.
And, like the Woodruffs, we also like to live on parks.
Real estate agents say houses situated on parks are usually worth more than houses that aren’t on a park. The obvious exceptions are noisy parks, or parks that become the site of criminal activity. Those kinds of parks hurt the neighborhood and depress property values.
But the value of a good park isn’t lost on developers looking for new sites. They know property located near a nice park can be sold at a premium.
At the same time, parks themselves are evolving. The old favorites, a ball field and jungle gym with swings, haven’t disappeared. But now there are also passive parks, rock-climbing parks, educational parks and linear parks that stretch far, if not wide.
“City parks, just like the national parks, are getting more popular,” said Gayle Berens, who wrote a book on parks and real estate development for the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. “Interest in recreational activities in parks has been increasing for several years.”
Parks have always been an important part of the urban, and even suburban, landscape. Parks are places for people to gather. They serve as a link between neighbors. Parks help kids find playmates as new mothers meet each other.
Parks provide some respite for city dwellers crowded into vertical homes. In the suburbs, where kids have big backyards to play in, parks function as hubs for community activities.
“Our parks get used,” said David Knight, superintendent of planning for the Naperville Park District, which tries to locate a playground within a half-mile walking distance of every home.
Parks have played a role in real estate development, too.
In Chicago, some of the earliest parks, dating back to the 1850s, were created by real estate developers eager to boost property values.
According to Julia Bachrach of the Chicago Park District, developers would donate land for a park and then build houses around the open area. This would spur other developers to build in the neighborhood. But the best and biggest houses were built on the parks or the boulevards that linked the parks.
At the same time neighborhood parks were being built to encourage residential development, large chunks of land were set aside for big parks, such as Lincoln Park.
In 1909, architect Daniel Burnham published his plan to create a system of lakefront parks that would stretch from the city’s South Side to the northern suburb of Wilmette.
Today, real estate agents say condominiums that front the big parks command the highest prices. For instance, properties with a view of Lincoln Park, which probably also includes a prized glimpse of Lake Michigan, may sell at a premium of up to 20 percent more than similar-sized units without a good view.
The attraction of the park, and, of course, the lakefront, helps explain why tall buildings crowd the edge. That fact upsets some residents who live farther west because their park view is obstructed by big buildings.
“People want views of trees and green,” said David C. Hall, managing real estate broker at the Coldwell Banker office in Lincoln Park.
The view isn’t the only attraction, though, park planners say. People want to live by a park so they can go there.
Take, for example, Eve Kronen, who works for a real estate company and bought a loft 1 1/2 blocks from the city’s new museum campus just south of the Loop.
“We hit the park every night,” said Kronen, referring to the evening stroll she takes with several neighbors. “The greenery is incredible.”
Kronen adds that it doesn’t even bother her that her fourth floor unit doesn’t give her a view of the park or the lake because she can be right in the middle of the park in a matter of minutes.
A 1991 study by the Chicago Park District showed that 60 percent of those using Lincoln Park were young people in their 20s and 30s. Local residents from adjacent neighborhoods represented the most frequent park users. Also, 62 percent of the people visiting Lincoln Park came there for passive recreation, such as walking or picnicking.
“Everyone wants to come to the lakefront parks. Lakefront parks are neighborhood parks too,” said Ed Uhlir, director of research and planning at the Chicago Park District.
Home buyers also like small parks.
Ben Albert bought a condominium with a balcony that hangs over left field of Wrightwood Park on the city’s North Side.
“That’s what sold me,” he said. “I love the city, but overlooking the park gives me a little bit of freedom.”
Albert says he thought about finding a condominium on a park but didn’t think it was possible because the units are so hard to come by. He feels he was lucky to get the place he did.
Even though he’s lived in the condominium only about three weeks, Albert has already invited friends over to play softball and basketball in the park.
“I’m always doing something in the park,” he said, adding that now he wants to get a dog to walk.
Homeowner Woodruff, living across from Kenwood Park, likes the recreational activities he can enjoy there. He does cross-country skiing and hiking there, too.
“It’s hard to convince yourself you are actually hiking when you’re in a city park. But it’s better than hiking down the street,” he said.
Last spring the City of Chicago enacted an ordinance that requires developers to include a certain amount of open space in their developments. If this isn’t possible, developers must pay a so-called impact fee to help acquire open space.
Uhlir of the Park District says development is occurring in places where land is so expensive that it can take millions of dollars to acquire park land.
“We want to increase the open space because residents suffer without it,” he said.
Other communities have adopted such measures. The Springfield-based Illinois Association of Park Districts estimates that about half of the towns in the state and about 70 percent of Chicago suburbs have similar open-space rules.
Though some developers don’t like the open-space ordinances, most admit the addition of greenery or the proximity to a park boosts property values.
In 1985, Ron Shipka Sr., chairman of Chicago-based Enterprise Development Co., built an 11-unit townhouse development next to Jonquil Park.
“The six units that face the park sold out in three weekends,” Shipka said. He adds that he made a big mistake by not charging a premium for the units on the park. Shipka figures those townhomes were probably worth 15 percent more than the other units.
Shipka didn’t make the same mistake twice. Units in his next park project were priced to reflect the view. And his newest venture, called Ravenswood Park, is a 40-unit condominium project on the North Side that has its own park with a playground inside the development.
“Parks are right behind water as an amenity,” said Shipka.
Though they want to build on parks, developers say it’s hard to assemble the land. Sometimes developers will speculate in property that surrounds a park. Single-family homes are bought and then replaced with two- or four-flat homes, depending on what the zoning will allow.
As desirable as parks are to developers and home buyers alike, the decision to purchase a property near a park deserves some consideration given the fact that a park can be more a liability than an asset to its neighborhood. Real estate agents say potential home buyers should check out nearby parks themselves.
Before buying the house across from Kenwood Park, homeowner Woodruff spent time in Kenwood Park. He and his wife visited the park regularly for months, and picnicked there. Woodruff also walked through the park at night to see if anything was going on.
“It took a little research, but we concluded that the park would add value to our home,” he said.
Experts say well-managed parks are well used, whether for strolling or Little League. That’s why municipalities schedule special programs in the parks and add new features that residents will come and try.
Popular additions these days are special water fountains and spray pools for kids to play in.
In Chicago, the park district is creating a family golf learning center at Marquette Park because residents are interested in the game. Many suburban parks and forest preserves are building bike and jogging trails to meet the demand for places to ride or walk.
