Why tearing down Englewood to save it hasn’t worked

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ardecila

but the density is a fraction of what you find in Williamsburg OR the South Bronx.

yeah, englewood is down to about 8,400 ppsm (2015), which is downright rural compared to williamsburg or the south bronx (or most other non-staten island locales in NYC).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I can't speak for Brooklyn, but if Englewood is similar to other low-income Chicago n'hoods then roughly 2/3 of households have access to a car, and they're likely to use it for grocery shopping. CTA might have a Green Line stop across the street, but the density is a fraction of what you find in Williamsburg OR the South Bronx.

Based on Streetview images (May 2019), the parking is hardly empty.

I wasn't saying Englewood had similar auto orientation as Williamsburg or South Bronx. No Chicago neighborhood has remotely similar share of car-free households.

My point was that chains generally demand parking, in even the most transit rich environments, so it's hardly surprising they demand parking in a more auto-oriented environment like Englewood. Outside of Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, it's really hard to find large U.S. chain stores (Target, Whole Foods, Home Depot, multiplexes, etc.) with no parking whatsoever. At the least there will be some underground paid parking.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

it's really hard to find large U.S. chain stores (Target, Whole Foods, Home Depot, multiplexes, etc.) with no parking whatsoever.

yeah, the only big box style retailer i can think of in chicago without any accessory parking at all is target.

there's one on state street in the loop and one over in river east.



back topic, as i stated earlier, land in englewood is not even remotely close to expensive enough to push a developer into a structured/underground parking solution, as northern light proposed, so strip malls it is.

yay.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ for sure, there's always a better way to do something, but the adage "beggars can't be choosers" applies here.

don't expect any wheel reinventions here from developers who are taking a massive risk just from putting shovels in the ground in the first place.

land values in that part of town are NOWHERE high enough to warrant structured or underground parking. and if you try to mandate it, they'll walk.

they're gonna play it as safe as they can.

I didn't expect property values to be high in a troubled area.........but your bolded 'nowhere' made me curious.

So I went looking on Zillow.

Holy @#$#

I've only seen real estate that cheap in Detroit and maybe rural Mississippi.

That's insane. There's a fully detached listed for only 14k.

Even if it was knockdown.........just wow.

It was hardly alone.....while some prices crested six figures....there was lots of under 50k stuff.

Now, I know, I know, Toronto Real Estate prices are insane......but I was just curious so jumped on realtor.ca and looked for the cheapest listing for a house anywhere in the City of Toronto, detached, semi, townhouse, w/e.

I found exactly 2 listings at $499,000CAD, roughly $400,000USD. That's it.

The mind boggles.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

back topic, as i stated earlier, land in englewood is not even remotely close to expensive enough to push a developer into a structured/underground parking solution, as northern light proposed, so strip malls it is.

yay.

^ While true, the City could've had at least enough vision (for a future time in which perhaps Englewood is healthier) to ask the developers to have the retail face the street and at least put parking in the back or the side.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ While true, the City could've had at least enough vision (for a future time in which perhaps Englewood is healthier) to ask the developers to have the retail face the street and at least put parking in the back or the side.

that would have obviously been much better, but as i said before, beggars can't be choosers.

national chain retailers much prefer to have parking be visible directly from the street. they only go for roof-top, underground, or back-of-lot parking when they are forced to (either by mandate or the economics of land value). and given the fact that they were making a huge dice roll on 63rd/halsted to begin with, forcing them to do anything outside of their comfort zone probably would've kiboshed the whole deal. the developer/retailers held all the cards here. they were gonna get what they wanted for playing ball with the city to actually invest in such a forlorn neighborhood.

[lio45]

Holy crap, Steely, you could've picked a less luxurious home and you would have had spare funds to buy a few entire Englewood blocks and be part of the solution

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by lio45

Holy crap, Steely, you could've picked a less luxurious home and you would have had spare funds to buy a few entire Englewood blocks and be part of the solution

Lio, you do own some rentals don't you? Maybe you and Steely could partner up, I'd throw in some capital. Find the best three contiguous streets in Englewood and buy it all? Just a passing fancy.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

Holy crap, Steely, you could've picked a less luxurious home and you would have had spare funds to buy a few entire Englewood blocks and be part of the solution

i have no desire to be an absentee landlord for property in englewood.

generally speaking, i'm a rather risk-averse person.

i've never wanted to be rich, just comfortable.

slow and steady wins the race!

[VivaLFuego]

City government indefinitely sitting on 2,500 vacant land parcels in the neighborhood certainly doesn't help.

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Commu...-Map/y5ck-7s96

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

generally speaking, i'm a rather risk-averse person.

FYI, the current built form in the 63rd/Halsted area is due to people exactly like you; it was the safest thing to do.

:p

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

it was the safest thing to do.

for sure. the violence down there is completely unacceptable on every level.

that's why so many people continue to leave englewood.

and i don't blame them. i'd do the very same if i were in their shoes.

[WhipperSnapper]

The plaza is disposable. The same can't be said once you get into structured parking. Maybe it will never amount to anything better. It's easy to redevelop should the area start to gentrify. It's not the worse.

[Steely Dan]

off topic discussion about city noise taken to a new thread: https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/sho...00#post8671400

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The plaza is disposable. The same can't be said once you get into structured parking. Maybe it will never amount to anything better. It's easy to redevelop should the area start to gentrify.

it's important to remember that 63rd/halsted is over 7 miles south of the loop.

it'll be many decades (if ever) before any kind of meaningful gentrification pushes that far south to raise land values high enough to warrant redeveloping strip malls in a more urban fashion.

hell, we still have some strip malls in neighborhoods like lakeview where land values are an order of magnitude higher.

once these cancers are placed into the urban environment, they tend to stick around for an obnoxiously long amount of time.