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Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn
Yes of course plans change, but again, this is a generational project and can’t be compared to something like 400 N Lakeshore, a 2-phase project that will be likely be completed in ~10 years from design to occupancy of the second building. Whereas the extensive land holdings of Sterling Bay here is going to be a more than 30 year build out. Lincoln Yards alone was 53 acres, nearly double the size of Lakeshore East. At their peak, Sterling Bay owned 70 acres here. This isn’t a single project, it a whole new neighborhood that will take at least three to four economic cycles to complete and we probably can’t even contemplate what new dynamics the city will have driving new development a generation out from now. 20 years ago, I certainly didn’t expect Fulton Market to erupt like it did, but that is exactly what happened when we took the arbitrary height and land use lids off and let that demand channel into new large projects by developers being allowed to go big.
There is no reason to dramatically scale back a master plan of this caliber, other to appease an anti-density alderman who fought to get this entire swath of property into his ward because he despised Lincoln Yards from the start. The entitlements granted were so extensive that there is a lot of room for “scaling it down” while still leaving room for some of those infrastructure improvements. But this is our one shot, because given the wall of opposition LY had, no one is going to re-litigate this entire thing once a new approval is in place and we forever lose the ability to go grander with better public amenities. I really hope the subsidy allotment can be reconsidered to do better, but we won’t have buy in from Waugespack.
What’s also interesting is the large public green space which Lincoln Parkers wanted and fought for is completely absent from this new draft plan. Genuinely curious as to how that is going to go.
I’m just disappointed that we are on the cusp of locking ourselves into mundane development pattern for the next 30+ years on a riverfront assemblage of property that we will likely never see again of this size on the North Side and I’m a little tired of just seeing excuses for not doing better and throwing up our hands and saying ‘well it won’t work’ rather than planning for it to actually work. 6 years ago, this was a viable plan, even if it may have been a bit overly ambitious. Much of the rest of the world is figuring out a way to make grand plans happen, here it’s much more of just a legacy.
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I think you're overplaying this project a bit here....
First of all, it's not as though LY ever really had a shot of being the next Fulton Market. Sterling Bay overplayed their hands and hedged on people magically flocking to this area to setup shop in Class A office space. If there wasn't any other large swaths of real estate in the city you could develop on with similar/better transit options, I might believe you. That's just not the reality we live in though.....
The momentum right now on that front continues to be in Fulton Market. Also, the 1901 project could easily draw that momentum further West. That area has much better transit connections given its proximity to Loop connections, Metra, etc. And if Quantum starts to become a thing, that momentum may even spur up in areas South of downtown. And frankly, that side of town needs it far more than the North side does.
I understand we all want every spare piece of land to become the next historic big thing, but market forces are at play, and the reality right now is LY is best fit for what is being proposed - Otherwise the original plan would already be much further along......