CHICAGO | Lincoln Yards

[Goose Island Guru]

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember when nearly this whole area was in fact filled with active businesses and buildings contributing property tax on both land and improvement value, even if not via the most profitable and lucrative uses for the new and previous owners. Reading your justifications, one might almost think that every parcel here was vacant and useless until a powerful interest started landbanking it.

For all the talk about spreading investment and development throughout the city, this is also an offensive location for major office development given how inaccessible it is from the South and West Sides, whose future redevelopment hinges on job accessibility. Job growth downtown is good for every neighborhood with good transit access to downtown. Job growth in Lincoln Yards is good for.... Bucktown, Lincoln Park, and the north and northwest suburbs?

You're not wrong. This was once a thriving area for industrial uses. Those businesses left. That's the problem. They're gone and they're not coming back (at least that's what Obama told us).

So sure, this was a once-thriving area for industrial use. The surrounding neighborhoods do not support an industrial use today - the area commands what is proposed. The infrastructure in place supports an industrial use, not what is proposed. This is why we are looking at a TIF. The TIF gives you better access from all directions; that's the purpose.