Monday, September 21, 2009

OLYMPICS WILL HAVE HISTORIC IMPACT ON ECONOMY AND HOUSING IN CHICAGO

With the epic deadline for winning the 2016 Olympics bid only a few days away, experts say now is the time for Chicagoans to take a hard look at how this event will impact the skyline and the wallet of the Windy City.

If Chicago snatches the $4.8-billion Olympic Games away from Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo on October 2nd, the event will have a historic impact on both the economy of the city and the future of housing on the 37-acre site of Michael Reese Hospital on the Near South Side, analysts say.

After all, creating a new neighborhood planned to house some 16,000 athletes and officials for a few weeks during the summer of 2016 isn’t the real goal of the Games. Along with vast international prestige, Mayor Richard M. Daley hopes to win a local jackpot—vast retail and commercial growth and development of both luxury and affordable housing along the South Side lakefront of the city.

Plans for the Olympic Village call for the city to raze the shuttered hospital complex and pump millions of dollars of infrastructure improvements in the area between 26th and 31st streets along Cottage Grove Avenue.

Developers would build the $1.1-billion Olympic Village in stages over a six-year period between 2010 and 2016. Some 2,000 to 3,500 housing units are planned across the giant 128-acre Olympic Village neighborhood just south of McCormick Place. The village would become a mixed-income residential community after the Games.

A Tax Increment Financing District already is in place for the village, and plans include construction of a light-rail system from McCormick Place all the way to 63rd Street along Cottage Grove Avenue.

However, with Chicago’s real estate market in a deep recession, and Olympic Games cost overruns on every taxpayer’s mind, now is the time to park the bulldozers and take a hard look at the design of the village and surrounding neighborhood.

Preservationists warn the city could be squandering an important opportunity for environmental and social sustainability by not preserving more of the noteworthy buildings and courtyards on the Michael Reese hospital campus. Preliminary plans call for retaining only the 102-year-old Prairie Style main building at Michael Reese and bulldozing the rest. Architectural critics note that Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius—one of the 20th Century’s most influential modernists—had a hand in designing the best contemporary buildings at Michael Reese.

Landmarks Illinois, an advocacy group, is calling for at least seven of the 29 buildings to be preserved along with the serene courtyards designed by landscape architect Hideo Sasaki.

In a recent letter to Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Chicago 2016 Committee, restoration specialist William Lavicka wrote: “Why not save $100 million and recycle all of the Michael Reese buildings? The structures are solid and the facades are more unique and interesting than anything that could be built new. Recycling is the ultimate in green development.”

Lavicka, of Historic Boulevard Services, says that rehabbing and reusing existing buildings will greatly reduce the need for costly new construction materials, lessen landfill waste and preserve important structures.

“Why not save more than a few of these solid old brick and stone hospital buildings, rehab them at half the cost of new construction and provide hundreds of affordable housing units for use decades after the Games?”

Even an interwoven mix of restored vintage hospital buildings and newly developed high-rises would “create a much more interesting and affordable weave in the urban tapestry at the Olympic Village,” Lavicka argues.

More than a dozen private developers already have responded to the city’s requests for qualifications (RFQ) from prospective bidders, and it is likely that each will select their own architects for the high-rises, so there is optimism for great design creativity as a vision of 21st Century Chicago comes into focus.