SAME PIG – NEW LIPSTICK
Alderman Dowell and the Department of Planning finally let the rest of us see Landmark Development’s revised plans for One Central. Crain’s Chicago Business just declared that the Wisconsin developer’s latest plans are nuts – a terrible idea that hasn’t gotten any better. Crain’s calls out Bob Dunn for trying to create a need that does not exist for a transit hub-shopping mall that we taxpayers would pay Dunn 6.5 billion dollars to build.
But a fancy transit hub-shopping mall is a failed strategy. Block 37 already tried this same experiment. But 10 years and one foreclosure later Block 37 is nearly half empty with 22 vacancies. Bob Dunn could care less if he sticks us with a white elephant.
One Central’s dominant feature is the now taller 7 story garage platform over the Metra tracks. And now the mid rises on that platform are pushed toward the neighborhood creating an 11 to 16 story great wall that runs from 14th St. to McCormick Place. No one else in the State of Illinois has been subjected to such a massive wall stretching the length of the entire neighborhood. And Landmark has been refining the revised plan with the City behind closed doors for months.
The city repeatedly refused our FOIA requests for these plans. Now we know why – turns out Dunn cooked the numbers for his one-sided Community Meeting. Our civil engineer verified with laser measurement that Dunn overstated the height of our neighborhood garage platforms by as much as 30% to make One Central look not as tall. Dunn also said One Central’s platform was the same as garage platforms in the South Loop. That’s not true – no building in the South Loop has a garage platform 7 stories tall, and there has never been a platform that runs without break for 10 city blocks like One Central. You should ask yourself – if SLCC can discover these misrepresentations in a week, why after months didn’t DPD or Dowell call them out at the Community Meeting on January 25?
Another civil engineer with experience with the planning board said that Dowell, as a past planning employee, knows that once a “formal submittal” is made, One Central will be virtually complete. Contrary to what Dowell is telling you, One Central has already been working with the City refining its plans. This revised plan is a result of that work. And not one bit of community input is yet reflected in One Central.
It’s time for you to tell Ald. Dowell and Mayor Lightfoot what you think. Join us, and make a donation to our non-profit. We’re putting together a team of experts to expose the fiction and false assumptions that is driving One Central forward with your elected representatives. We are the South Loop Concerned Coalition.
Thank You!
#NoOneCentral #Priorities #ChicagoSouthLoop #Chicago #CityOfChicago #NonEssentialOneCentral #Covid19Recovery #SmallBusinesses #SamePigNewLipstick
ONE Central Community Webinar
6 p.m., Monday, Jan. 25, 2021 | Video | Draft Presentation