Quote:
Originally Posted by hawainpanda
although I agree that NMH can do better than just placing a fence around it, that land is being reserved for future use for clinical/research buildings. It is common for many similar large academic medical centers in urban areas to monopolize on land surrounding their existing buildings so that they can plan for future expansions. Institutions that don't do this, or couldn't do this ie many of the NYC medical centers have a hard time catching up to other medical centers when it comes to expanding (and frequently pay significantly more for similar expansions made by other instutions.)
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What a concept, making institutions pay market price for the expensive, central, parcels of land they are building on. They might even seek to fully utilize those parcels rather than building 20 story turds all over the place. It might even force them to be architecturally innovative. But we musn't force that burden on them though, because sick children.
It's about time we lift non profit status for organizations like Northwestern Medical which are essentially non-profits operating in a highly lucrative for-profit marketplace. I was one of the last people to speak in favor of this building at the final public hearing when the un-landmarked Prentice in a sham vote by a bunch of "landmarks commissioners" exactly zero of whom were architects or even professionals in a related field. I was one of many voices that night that suggested similar concerns about this abuse of the system. It's a shame that our land use laws provide such a joke of protection from the ongoing urban planning and preservation disasters that are institutions like Northwestern.
Given the amount of contiguous land Northwestern owns they could easily build upwards for a very long time before hitting heights that actually become cost prohibitive. Hospitals are expensive structures, but not all that structurally dissimilar from office buildings. There is a reason why we get almost exclusively 650' 750' office buildings in Chicago: That is the tallest height at which such a structure becomes cost ineffective. Accounting for the increased circulation and infrastructure concerns of a hospital program you could argue the height is lower for hospitals, but it's certainly not 300' like the average height of the Streeterville Campus. Also, remember that we are talking about whole blocks of land here which I would argue negates the circulation difficulties of building upwards.
And if the efficient height really is that low for hospitals, then they should be generally forced to cheaper land in the periphery. There is no reason to have any of the research, therapy, long term care, etc units there. Those units aren't critical like emergency services. If forced to play by the same rules as everyone else, non-critical services would simply vacate the area. This is why this area is no longer distribution facilities and boat slips. Those uses no longer make economic sense given the prevailing land values. Maybe it's time for those users to pay their fair share or move to a more logical location like IMD where they can frolic in the open prairie and even afford to build suburban abominations if their hearts so desire. And I think it's obvious, given the general state of hospital design, the idea of nice parking lot moat around their hospital arouses the lust of many a Chief Medical Officer.
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