Dubious last-minute changes are being made to plans for a new Cook County courthouse on Chicago’s West Side.
That doesn’t mean the courthouse isn’t needed. It is needed and desperately so.
But questionable ad-libs at this late stage surely are a warning that this project is moving too fast for its own good . . . and for the good of Cook County taxpayers.
Last week the county board’s Finance and Construction Committees voted to proceed with construction of a $212 million facility just north of the Eisenhower Expressway at Homan Avenue. Its 32 courtrooms will eventually accommodate Traffic Court, which is losing its downtown lease, and Domestic Violence Court, which has been operating in disgracefully cramped quarters on South Michigan Avenue.
City and county planners see Homan Avenue as an aggressive choice from an urban renewal standpoint. This corner of East Garfield Park is predominantly African-American, struggling against street crime and housing abandonment and well to the west of the real estate boom revitalizing the Near West Side. Yet the location is well served by transportation, planners argue, with both a Blue Line transit stop and an expressway exit at Homan.
At least it was well-served.
Under criticism from a small remnant of property owners along the 3300 blocks of Congress Parkway and Van Buren, the joint committee last week voted to downsize the site from 13 acres to just eight and to consolidate the project north of Van Buren. Motorists barely would be able to see the courthouse from the Eisenhower, much less pull directly into its lot; and court-bound “L” riders would be forced to hike an extra block north, past some of the worst housing on the West Side.
Public transportation is key. Fully half of Traffic Court patrons now get there by bus or train, and plans for the Homan site call for just a 1,600-space parking deck even though there will be nearly 1,000 employees.
But the board’s 11th-hour, will-o’-the-wisp decision to downsize does not inspire confidence in the county’s planning process. Not after the search for court space has dragged on for longer than anyone cares to remember. Not after the board rejected Chicago’s offer to sell the existing Traffic Court building for only $1 (because it would have required $38 million in renovation,) only to necessitate a move to temporary space at the Daley Center (at a cost of $19 million) while the Homan facility is built.
The full county board is supposed to take final action Tuesday. Better they should step back and look at the numbers and the plans one more time.
