At a “State of the 48th Ward” presentation before the Uptown Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday, Nov. 16, Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th) spoke of change, redevelopment, and finding creative, “diverse” ways to breathe new life—and attract new dollars—into the Uptown community.
Smith sounded upbeat while advocating the proposed Broadway/Lawrence tax increment financing (TIF) district—expected to provide about $40 million for public and private development projects. She gave special emphasis to the plan to redevelop the closed Goldblatt’s department store at Broadway and Racine Avenue, portraying it as the key that could either open or close the door to the area’s revitalization.
The proposed TIF would stretch roughly along Broadway from Leland to Berwyn avenues, and along Lawrence Avenue from Magnolia Avenue to Sheridan Road. Several surrounding residential blocks on streets such as Sheridan Road and Winthrop and Kenmore avenues would also be included.
She called the TIF plan a “quality product” that “partner[s] affordable housing development with first-class retail and historic preservation,” not to mention job training. The public has been involved in the planning process all the way, Smith said.
“We could just say to investors and developers, ‘Do what you want.’ But we’re really shooting very, very high here,” she said. “We’re requiring developers to work with us to produce really unusual, difficult and extraordinary things. Some of [the developers] are in the room with us here today.”
Smith told the crowd, largely composed of local business leaders, that “change is inevitable” and is most often precipitated by a crisis or a conflict—perhaps an allusion to the fierce criticism the development plans have garnered from affordable-housing advocates.
But what’s more important than crisis is the community’s response, Smith said. Becoming mired in conflict could drive away badly needed investment in the neighborhood, she said, pointing out that longtime Chicago-based businesses have moved to the suburbs, taking away dollars that could have been spent in Uptown.
“This should not be a situation where there are winners and losers,” Smith said.
The tone of the speech was far from the militant stance taken by low-cost housing advocates the previous week in a march organized by the Organization of the NorthEast (ONE). Like ONE and its allies, Smith says she is fighting for “diversity,” only her definition of the word is a bit different. A recurring theme in her talk was “economic diversity”—making room in Uptown for the middle-class and more affluent as well as the poor.
Smith touted the planned Goldblatt’s project—which includes 37 condominium units and two retail spaces, one for a Borders Books—as a model for redevelopment. The project includes historic preservation and restoration; affordable housing; market-rate housing; retail businesses; and a personal guarantee by the developer, Joseph Freed and Associates, to spend $1 million to help with the development of low-cost housing in part of the old Leland Hotel on the west side of Racine Avenue.
“Now you tell me if that isn’t a sweet deal,” Smith said.
After her speech, Smith was asked by Inside whether, at $155,000 per unit, the seven lower-cost units proposed by Freed and Associates could really be considered “affordable.”
Smith replied that $155,000 is indeed affordable, “for some people.”
Moreover, she stressed, “the partner to [the Goldblatt’s project” is the affordable housing across the street.
“No project can be all things to all people. No project can solve all of the neighborhood’s problems. But I believe that project is a wonderful way for Uptown to take a great step forward.”
But in her speech, said Chamber members must be “deeply engaged” in advocating the projects because “these deals are fragile and we can lose them in a second,” she warned. “People are organizing to try to kill the Goldblatt’s project. No one’s organizing to come to these hearings to say they want the project.”
Smith moved on to other issues, among them traffic and parking situations in the area.
She said the 48th Ward is the model of “transit-oriented development” and said she was working with city officials and local residents for even more improvements.
A woman attending the meeting commented, “The reason I shop elsewhere—and I don’t like shopping out of the neighborhood—is because sometimes I just can’t find parking.”
Smith replied that a 48th Ward “parking task force” has been working on the issue and has developed a questionnaire for residents.
“We’re looking at a number of options for creating more parking,” Smith said, noting that her ward has four times more city stickers than parking spots. But on a positive note, she said, 42 percent of the households have no car and the ward uses public transportation at three times the city average.
What to do to create more parking? “I detest permit parking,” Smith said. “Having to take police to enforce it... there are so many things they need to do.” But Smith endorsed permit parking during “very narrow time periods” to clean up the “car dumping,” or storing broken-down cars on the street, practiced by some auto body shops.
“We’re looking for solutions to the on-street parking prolem that aren’t going to have a negative impact on business,” she said.
Among those is a solution suggested up by local residents: Car-sharing. Condominium associations and other groups could maintain cars to be shared by their older residents who rarely drive but like to have a car around “just in case.”
“We saw it in Freiburg, Germany; we saw it in Stockholm, they’re doing it in Boston and in Portland,” Smith said. “It’s also part of an affordable living equation. It costs between seven and nine thousand dollars to keep a second car, on the average.”
Public Forum: A community meeting on the Goldblatt’s/Leland Hotel project is slated for Tuesday, Nov. 27, at the People’s Church, 941 W. Lawrence Ave.
Printable Version