http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...eapr18,1,3341344.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Plan for huge former post office considered
By Alexa Aguilar
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 18, 2007, 9:22 PM CDT
The old Chicago Post Office, a behemoth that spans the Eisenhower Expressway and two city blocks, is so large that developers have struggled for almost a decade to come up with a workable plan for the vacant space.
On Thursday, 11 years after the U.S. Postal Service moved its operations to a newer facility nearby, the city's Plan Commission will consider a proposal to convert the building's 2.5 million square feet of empty space to a sprawling project of hotel rooms, offices and residences. Previously, different developers have proposed creating a mausoleum, a casino, an auto mall and a water park in the Art Deco-style building.
The latest renovation plan, supported by city officials, includes removing more than a million square feet from the building's center to create a north tower for office space, a south tower for residences, a 240-room hotel facing the Chicago River, 400 parking spaces and a green rooftop terrace.
Walton Street Capital LLC, the real estate investment firm that came up with the proposal, has pitched idea after idea to prospective tenants and hoteliers over the years. The firm first indicated its interest in the space to the Postal Service in 1998.
But the building's size, its historic designation and its proximity to nearby railroad tracks and the expressway have stalled the project repeatedly.
"It's a fascinating project, if we can pull it off," said Raphael Dawson, a partner at Walton Street.
The city will likely kick in subsidies, in the form of a tax-increment-financing grant, for Walton Street, said Constance Buscemi, a spokeswoman for the city's Planning Department. She declined to provide specific numbers.
"We've been working with them on this for quite some time," Buscemi said.
The plan takes a "grand, old building" and gives it a new purpose, she said.
The 10-story building, once the world's largest post offices, is on the National Register of Historic Places. First built in 1921 and then transformed with a dramatic expansion in 1932, the building was designed by Graham Anderson Probst & White, the same firm that designed such Chicago landmarks as the Civic Opera House and the Merchandise Mart.
Because of that designation, the proposal needed the approval of the National Park Service, which oversees properties on the national register. Dawson said the park service has given its approval.
David Bahlman, president of Landmarks Illinois, a statewide preservation organization, said he is disappointed there isn't a plan that could save the entire building. The old post office has been on the group's list of most endangered landmarks, he said.
But he acknowledged that the structure's size and location made redevelopment difficult.
"This is a tough, tough project . . . one of the most difficult preservation issues I have ever seen," he said. "It's the poster child for what we call white elephants."
The stalled project garnered the attention of a U.S. Senate subcommittee last year, when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) used the old Chicago Post Office as an example of surplus federal property that used taxpayers' dollars to maintain vacant space.
It cost the federal government $2 million a year to maintain the building, he said last year.
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Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
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yeah, it's supposed to be a counterpoint to the MP bridge by gehry. very knife-like and cool.
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