[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by ardecila

No, my point is that the city would never approve the kind of zoning that the state envisions for this site. If it were up to Brendan Reilly, he'd force all kinds of design changes and reduce the intensity of use.

The state needs a vast sum of money from the sale, probably well above what the market price would normally be for downtown land. Since the market price already reflects the zoning that a developer could reasonably get, the only way the state can get an above-market price is to flex their state power and override the city's zoning power.

The rub is that private developers don't have state power to override local zoning. Usually in these kinds of state-led redevelopments, there is some legal scheme that makes the state the actual developer on paper until the new building is completed, maybe longer than that if the deal is set up as a ground lease.

Of course, this is all hypothetical and assumes developers will be lining up to get their hands on this site to build Chicago's version of 1WTC or One Vanderbilt. But it may not have as much value as the state thinks it does.

so the State of IL is subservient to Brendan Reilly's aldermanic prerogative? that's funny.