More than a year after Mayor Richard Daley unveiled plans for a $65 million Salvation Army recreational and social service complex, paid for in part by the estate of McDonald’s hamburger heiress Joan Kroc, the project has taken a last-minute detour, officials said Wednesday.
Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) has decided she wants retail development on the project’s proposed site, from 47th to 49th Streets and from State Street to just west of Federal Street.
“Of course we are disappointed. We are now looking for another site, and I think we would have preferred to build there,” said Lt. Col. David Grindle, commander of the organization’s Metropolitan Division. “But we have come to the conclusion that we need to find a site that will serve the purposes for which Mrs. Kroc gave the Salvation Army money in the first place.”
Tillman’s opposition aside, Grindle said army officials “had some concerns what the long-term future would hold for a center at [the State Street] location. It appears the neighborhood is improving, gentrifying. … It is possible that in 20 years we would find ourselves in the wrong location.”
The center was to have been modeled after a similar Kroc-funded complex in San Diego that has swimming pools, a large gymnasium, ice skating rink and arts center. Plans also called for social programs such as tutoring and child care, as well as a computer lab and homework rooms.
Kroc, who died in 2003, left the Salvation Army $1.5 billion for community centers across the United States. The Chicago center is to receive $45 million to be used toward construction and a $45 million endowment.
Tillman said her ward already has some of the same social service programs that would have been provided by the Salvation Army. The 25-acre site, now owned by the Chicago Housing Authority, offers what she called “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for a large development that would generate jobs and tax revenue.
About $3 million in city economic development funds that would have gone toward the Salvation Army project now can be used for other job-generating developments in the ward, she said.
“If they don’t want it, they don’t want it,” Daley said. “The Salvation Army is a great asset for any community. … There are a lot of sites in the city.”
With the city’s help, the Salvation Army now is seeking a new location marked by “lack of opportunity for citizens living there and extreme need,” Grindle said. His goal is to find the site and break ground “toward late fall” of 2006, he said.
“That may be unrealistic, but I am not prepared to back off that date until I absolutely know it is not possible,” Grindle said.
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gwashburn@tribune.com
