CHICAGO | General Developments

[LouisVanDerWright]

^^^ Also, the beauty of private industry is that companies can choose to pay whoever they want whatever they want. If they overpay and lose money, that's their problem and they will eventually be wiped out by someone smarter, nimbler, and less wasteful. If that happens in government you are fucked, there is no competing government that will come along and provide the necessary services if the current government is so grossly mismanaged that it goes under.

[marothisu]

It's not just that industry that you waste time with bullshit - it's like everything. In software development for example, people really pay attention to defects (i.e. bugs). So then when some person at the top, who was brought on to lead who has zero idea about this stuff, just looks at the numbers and gives you shit if you have too many defects recorded against you - you then become enamored with the process. You spend more time managing the defects to make the upper management see that it's not so bad than just fixing shit. And of course, time is money and too much of this just wastes tons of time and money. And it all started with some guy managing by a dashboard who doesn't understand anything, yet he's leading, so you waste hours just making your team look good for him instead of just...DOING THINGS.

If I had to estimate the amount of time and money I've wasted just because of that, I'd put it into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, very possibly in the millions, and probably a solid month's worth of work lost because of it.

[XIII]

Originally Posted by marothisu

If I had to estimate the amount of time and money I've wasted just because of that, I'd put it into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, very possibly in the millions, and probably a solid month's worth of work lost because of it.

This is my point. Millions of dollars of whose money lost?
If you're a stockholder, where the party who is supposed to represent your interests in this? The press doesn't care. The board doesn't care. The executives rarely care unless its tied to a metric in their pay package. There isn't someone you can go to as a common shareholder and raise any of these concerns.

If you're a consumer you get punished by higher prices (or an inefficiency tax, if you will). What is your recourse in that case? You have no representation, but in areas of limited choice, you directly pay for the consequences without having any say in the matter.

At least with public government, there are journalists, reformers and political interest groups who are occasionally interested in exposing some of these things and improving the system. That sort of interest is lacking in private industry.


And back to development news:

Zell is unloading the Illinois Center. Maybe now it can pick up a little more interaction with Wacker. The Michigan Ave plaza is also a huge opportunity for a gathering space.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestat...-selling-illinois-center-for-375-million

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by XIII

This is my point. Millions of dollars of whose money lost?
If you're a stockholder, where the party who is supposed to represent your interests in this? The press doesn't care. The board doesn't care. The executives rarely care unless its tied to a metric in their pay package. There isn't someone you can go to as a common shareholder and raise any of these concerns.

If you're a consumer you get punished by higher prices (or an inefficiency tax, if you will). What is your recourse in that case? You have no representation, but in areas of limited choice, you directly pay for the consequences without having any say in the matter.

It would depend on what impact those millions have. If they don't really affect the budget, then nobody outside of the management and team will even notice. If, however, because of the problems caused by management causes the project to go over budget by millions of dollars, it could lead to other consequences. I have direct knowledge of a company who lost (went over budget) HUNDREDS of millions of dollars because of stupid shit like this (amongst other things). You think nobody cared?

The point too to me is how much time and money is wasted on this stuff - it's more unsettling to me than anything. If your budget is $10M and you could have done it in $5M, but you spend all $10M, then fine. However, if your budget is $10M, and because of idiotic decisions that could have been avoided you end up spending $100M then it's a problem.

[Randomguy34]

Apparently while we were talking about the permit system in the city, Rahm has announced a reform in order to streamline the process.

Rahm Touts New Reforms Streamlining Permit Process
By Ted Cox | June 26, 2015
CITY HALL — Mayor Rahm Emanuel is touting new reforms that he says will streamline the sometimes unwieldy permit process.

Emanuel's administration announced new policies Friday, basically putting architects and designers in charge of compliance with city building regulations.

"This is an important step forward for our economy and for these industries," Emanuel said in a statement. "Anyone doing construction in Chicago obviously has to have a building permit, and by finding new ways to cut red tape around the building-permit process we can support our industry partners and strengthen economic development in Chicago."....

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150626/downtown/rahm-touts-new-reforms-streamlining-permit-process

I'm not too familiar with the current permit process. LVDW, marothisu, and other forumers, does this new system look like a step in the right direction?

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by XIII

This is my point. Millions of dollars of whose money lost?
If you're a stockholder, where the party who is supposed to represent your interests in this?

That's the beauty of private industry: you are the party who is supposed to represent your interests. Buyer beware. That's why some companies do well while others falter. Do you research and decide whether the operating margins are worth it compared to the competitors. That's why Amazon has taken over the retail industry while Sears has failed. You are not guaranteed anything except transparency when you buy a stock. There is no promise of growth or profit. That's why you usually make a return on your money (usually being the key word here) in the stock market, because you are taking a risk.

Government is totally different because it makes many promises and is expected to deliver on those promises.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by XIII

This is my point. Millions of dollars of whose money lost?
If you're a stockholder, where the party who is supposed to represent your interests in this? The press doesn't care. The board doesn't care. The executives rarely care unless its tied to a metric in their pay package. There isn't someone you can go to as a common shareholder and raise any of these concerns.

If you're a consumer you get punished by higher prices (or an inefficiency tax, if you will). What is your recourse in that case? You have no representation, but in areas of limited choice, you directly pay for the consequences without having any say in the matter.

At least with public government, there are journalists, reformers and political interest groups who are occasionally interested in exposing some of these things and improving the system. That sort of interest is lacking in private industry.
...

As a common shareholder, you can attend all shareholder meetings and often speak. Owning shares in a companies doesn't guarantee that any other shareholder will agree with your perception of the state of things, though, and a public company is actually democratic since you get to vote on some things and if you can get enough other shareholders together you can force a vote on almost anything. There are a few exceptions, where the structure of the shares leaves power in the hands of founders, etc, but they are the exception.

As for journalists, why exactly do you think newspapers have a business section? Have you never seen investigative articles about businesses in Crain's or the Sun-Times or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or the Financial Times? I have. Even when they're not investigatory, business journalists compare the efficiency of companies frequently. That may not be an "expose," but it is part of how investors decide where to place their money and impacts companies. Government is a monopoly, but business is, mostly, Darwinistic democracy.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

Apparently while we were talking about the permit system in the city, Rahm has announced a reform in order to streamline the process.

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150626/downtown/rahm-touts-new-reforms-streamlining-permit-process

I'm not too familiar with the current permit process. LVDW, marothisu, and other forumers, does this new system look like a step in the right direction?

Sounds like big news, any thoughts from people who deal with the current process?

[streetline]

Moss design has put up some renders for proposed changes referred to as The Naru Project for the section of the river east of Goose Island.

I have to say, I'm extremely interested in seeing the riverwalk connected and developed in that area, and I'm glad they're being ambitious about it... But I'm not wild about some specifics of their plans.

They seem to be narrowing the river a lot (just as the R2 renderings did); I don't see that appeal of that. The river is supposed to be the focus of the project, reducing it to a creek to fit in swimming pools and stages and wildlife preserves misses the point imho.

And while they call it a riverwalk, they don't seem to be paying any attention to where people could actually walk along the river. And speaking of walking, they not only aren't adding bridges, they seem to be removing them! (a significant difference from the R2 plan) Specifically the utility bridge at Evergreen, rather than being enhanced to support pedestrians, seems to have been torn out and blocked off by a theater. And they're blocking off any future bridges at Blackhawk and Weed as well with a swimming pool and an new kayak launch (I guess they don't want to use the existing dock a few feet north of there, as it seems to be gone or reduced?).

[VKChaz]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Government is totally different because it makes many promises and is expected to deliver on those promises.

Which is why I think the public sector is challenging. The private sector is measured by profitability, and there is an expectation and tolerance of some amount of risk-taking and failure. By contrast, on the public side, bureaucracy and process is used as a system of checks and balances to provide accountability (the not-for-profit sector can be similar) to the citizens.

Though I have not worked in the public sector, I can understand many of the challenges faced. Instead of profitability, the goal of the people working in a city’s administration is to protect the interests of the city and its people. That creates a heck of a lot of ambiguity. It may be impossible to know if decisions made are in a city’s best long-term interest (especially when that means 50+ years whereas in the private sector we concern ourselves with only the next several years or even quarters).

[spyguy]

Hartshorne's website was recently updated and they had a few images of current/dead proposals that we have never seen:

Lake and Aberdeen - 90 units


1201 N Clark - 98 units (anyone know what's happening with this one?)


And finally the Hyatt House (which looks surprisingly nice) next to Trump, which Reilly killed

[pilsenarch]

^Yeah, bKL is working on a condo project for that site... I've seen it and it's a solid winner... appears to be also about the same height as the Hyatt proposal above...

[hawainpanda]

Originally Posted by pilsenarch

^Yeah, bKL is working on a condo project for that site... I've seen it and it's a solid winner... appears to be also about the same height as the Hyatt proposal above...

Seems sort of short for auch a nice location....would of expected at least a 400-500 foot tower

[J_M_Tungsten]

1201 N Clark when through a major transformation in design. I live in the area and only received notices for Tower of Jewel advancements. Not much for 1201.

[Busy Bee]

1201 looks really nice.

[ChiPsy]

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten

1201 N Clark when through a major transformation in design. I live in the area and only received notices for Tower of Jewel advancements. Not much for 1201.

So do you think this render is post-design transformation or have you seen something newer/different?

[Rizzo]

IIRC people were supportive of the 1201 N clark project at the meeting over a year and half ago. Surprised this one hasn't moved forward. Design still looks the same.

[J_M_Tungsten]

Maybe not as drastic of a difference as I remembered.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestat...to-build-98-apartments-in-the-gold-coast

[ithakas]

This might be totally off base, but what if developers could skirt minimal parking requirements by contributing to a transit development fund? Does some program like this exist?

[Skyguy_7]

Had a chance to enjoy the Riverwalk again over the weekend, and the thing just keeps getting better. They had several vendors offering facepainting, caricatures, balloon animals. It was a very European feel. There was live music and you couldn't find a seat at City Winery. There were boats docked, kayakers paddling by. It was incredibly lively. Was everyone aware the River Theater has a Water Taxi stop? I was not! This shot is from River Roast, a great new restaurant just east of LaSalle.