By Adam Harrington
Special to Inside
The need for medical services, affordable housing and space for senior citizens, and above all the need for open communication on redevelopment issues, dominated a meeting on the future of the Ravenswood Hospital on Monday, Oct. 8. Community leaders and residents discussed these issues and brainstormed ideas at the American Indian Center (AIC), 1630 W. Wilson Ave.
Seay & Thomas, Inc., which is developing the Ravenswood Hospital site, has released plans for all of the buildings in the complex, which were distributed at the meeting. The developers plan to lease the Professional Office to physicians’ groups and a fitness club, turn the Adler Pavilion into market rate condos, and use the Day Care/Residence Hall for Class 9 housing, which will allow landowners to rent below market rate.
The developers also plan to use the main Hospital Building for senior housing. The Special Care Pavilion is now under a 20-year lease to the Chicago Institute for Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch (CINN), which plans to operate an emergency room on the site.
While residents and other attendees agreed that Seay & Thomas’ plans were on the right track in terms of community needs, some noted that to renovate buildings on the complex for non-medical use would require a zoning change, which is a complicated process that is not sure to succeed.
“The current property is zoned for medical use. So the developers’ primary interest initially was trying to keep all the buildings as medical uses. [Otherwise] they have to go to the zoning board for appeals, and ask for a zoning variance,” said Heidi Nelson of Chicago Health Outreach. “If they do follow their plans to go with market rate condos, particularly in the Adler Building, then they will have to go through that process.”
Attendees also said that the developers were not giving enough input to the community about their plans.
“I think the developers should reach out to the communities. This is one meeting. We hope there are other meetings that are generative and productive,” said Joe Andrews of the North Center/Lincoln Square Neighborhood Association. “But we do need the developers to come to the meetings. They need to have the plans out in front of the community and to take the community’s input well, because it’s the community that has to live with this for the next 25, 50, 75 years.”
A man who identified himself only as a friend of David Lehman, Seay & Thomas’ President of Investment and Development, attended the meeting in Lehman’s absence. Meanwhile, the meeting’s organizers, from the American Indian Center and the Organization of the Northeast, called on everyone present to brainstorm at the meeting, seating people in small groups around tables.
The need for affordable housing, continued medical facilities, and medical services for the Native American population were among the most popular needs cited.
Finding a better home for the only Indian health services in the state of Illinois was the concern of Joe Podlasek, AIC executive director. “They were next to Thorek Hospital [at Irving Park Rd. and Broadway], and Thorek Hospital bought out the block and said, ‘It’s time to move.’” Podlasek suggested that it relocate to the Ravenswood Hospital site.
Other attendees said a mixture of affordable and market rate housing was far preferable to a massive tract of one or the other.
“When it’s only affordable housing, you end up with a ghetto — not to sound pejorative, but it ghettoizes the area,” said Ravenswood community resident Eli Siegel. “I think it’s important that there be a wide variety of housing options — if there’s housing at all.”
Many others represented special interests that they wished to see on the Ravenswood site, including more space for St. Augustine College in nearby Uptown; and the development of a Montessori School, to which Seay & Thomas plan to lease the first floor of the Adler Pavilion.
The meeting’s organizers said that allowing community members to brainstorm ideas in a public setting, and write them down for the developers, is the best way to generate results and gain credence with the developers.
“What we’ll do is we’ll put all this information together. First we’ll distribute it to everyone who is here, then we’ll present it to the developers and Ald. Gene Schulter (47th),” said Melba Rodriguez of the Organization of the North East. “What we hope to gain is the sense of the developer that he needs to deal with the community that it isn’t only the alderman and for the alderman to value open community processes.”
The sponsoring organizations are planning more meetings, in which they intend to include both the developers and Ald. Schulter. A meeting sponsored by Ravenswood Community Council about the future of the Ravenswood Hospital site was held Tuesday evening, Oct. 15, as Inside went to press. Look for coverage of this meeting in our Oct. 23 issue. |
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