Twisted Titan
29th December 2010, 09:02 AM
Chicago to Redevelop U.S. Steel Site on Lakefront
CHICAGO — A plan to redevelop the site of the long-closed U.S. Steel plant on the south lakefront here is ambitious even in a city whose attitude has long been Daniel Burnham’s maxim, “Make no little plans.”
Philip Enquist, of the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, near a masonry wall along an old boat slip from the area’s industrial past.
The about 470-acre South Works site juts into Lake Michigan and has dazzling views of downtown nine miles to the north. The master plan, by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, calls for 13,575 market rate and affordable homes to serve 50,000 new residents, 17.5 million square feet of retail and commercial space, a high school and a marina with 1,500 slips, to be built in phases over the next 30 years. The estimated cost is $4 billion.
The project took a major step forward in September when the city awarded it a $98 million tax increment financing grant that will be used to build infrastructure for the development’s first phase. This followed a decision by the city last spring to approve the master plan.
“The scale of the project is extraordinary,” said Chris Raguso, who recently left her position as acting commissioner of the city’s Department of Community Development to become Mayor Richard M. Daley’s chief of staff. “The fact that anybody in this economy still wants to take a shot at developing a site that is basically a landfill and is basing the development on retail and housing is also extraordinary.”
Over three-quarters of the site is landfill in the form of slag, a byproduct of steel production.
The developers of the project are the U.S. Steel Corporation, based in Pittsburgh, and McCaffery Interests of Chicago.
“South Works is very unique for us,” said George A. Manos, the president of U.S. Steel Real Estate. “No. 1 is the duration. It’s very long term. No. 2 is it’s a true partnership with the City of Chicago to help transform an area of the city.”
Daniel McCaffery, the president of McCaffery Interests, said the project “boggles the mind. It’s the largest undeveloped site in Chicago.”
The development incorporates significant aspects of New Urbanist and sustainable planning guidelines by extending the city’s existing street grid and emphasizing smaller blocks, narrower streets and access to mass transit.
“I think this will be the new downtown for the South Side of Chicago,” said Philip Enquist, a principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
The plan also includes about 125 acres of new lakefront parkland as well as several smaller parks that are consistent with the architect Daniel Burnham’s bold Plan of Chicago of 1909, which called for expanding the city’s lakefront park system as part of a comprehensive regional approach to urban planning.
“South Works is the biggest missing piece in terms of completing Burnham’s vision” for the lakefront, said MarySue Barrett, the president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit advocacy group in the Chicago region.
The site is vacant except for a small brick building at the entrance, which will become a marketing center, and several massive masonry walls along an old boat slip that bisects the property. One of the walls would be preserved as a reminder of the area’s industrial past.
“I love the walls,” Mr. Enquist said. “They look like they came from a different civilization.”
In many ways, they did.
South Works began in the early 1880s as a division of the North Chicago Rolling Mill and was absorbed into U.S. Steel in 1901. For most of the 20th century, South Works was the largest employer on the city’s South Side with upward of 30,000 workers.
Over the years, the plant produced the steel responsible for such structures as the Sears (now Willis) Tower, the John Hancock Center and the McCormick Place convention center.
In the 1970s, however, U.S. Steel began consolidating its Chicago-area steel-making activities at its plant in Gary, Ind., and in 1992 South Works closed. The closing left a huge void in the neighborhoods to the west and south, which were largely populated by the families of steelworkers.
“If you walk through the various neighborhoods, it is still possible to talk to residents who either worked there or whose fathers and grandfathers did,” said Sandi Jackson, the alderwoman for the Seventh Ward, which includes the northern part of the site. “They have fond memories of South Works and want to see something exciting happen on that site.”
The site required years of environmental remediation and was also subject to several competing visions for its future before the current plan began to take shape in the early 2000s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/re...29chicago.html
CHICAGO — A plan to redevelop the site of the long-closed U.S. Steel plant on the south lakefront here is ambitious even in a city whose attitude has long been Daniel Burnham’s maxim, “Make no little plans.”
Philip Enquist, of the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, near a masonry wall along an old boat slip from the area’s industrial past.
The about 470-acre South Works site juts into Lake Michigan and has dazzling views of downtown nine miles to the north. The master plan, by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, calls for 13,575 market rate and affordable homes to serve 50,000 new residents, 17.5 million square feet of retail and commercial space, a high school and a marina with 1,500 slips, to be built in phases over the next 30 years. The estimated cost is $4 billion.
The project took a major step forward in September when the city awarded it a $98 million tax increment financing grant that will be used to build infrastructure for the development’s first phase. This followed a decision by the city last spring to approve the master plan.
“The scale of the project is extraordinary,” said Chris Raguso, who recently left her position as acting commissioner of the city’s Department of Community Development to become Mayor Richard M. Daley’s chief of staff. “The fact that anybody in this economy still wants to take a shot at developing a site that is basically a landfill and is basing the development on retail and housing is also extraordinary.”
Over three-quarters of the site is landfill in the form of slag, a byproduct of steel production.
The developers of the project are the U.S. Steel Corporation, based in Pittsburgh, and McCaffery Interests of Chicago.
“South Works is very unique for us,” said George A. Manos, the president of U.S. Steel Real Estate. “No. 1 is the duration. It’s very long term. No. 2 is it’s a true partnership with the City of Chicago to help transform an area of the city.”
Daniel McCaffery, the president of McCaffery Interests, said the project “boggles the mind. It’s the largest undeveloped site in Chicago.”
The development incorporates significant aspects of New Urbanist and sustainable planning guidelines by extending the city’s existing street grid and emphasizing smaller blocks, narrower streets and access to mass transit.
“I think this will be the new downtown for the South Side of Chicago,” said Philip Enquist, a principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
The plan also includes about 125 acres of new lakefront parkland as well as several smaller parks that are consistent with the architect Daniel Burnham’s bold Plan of Chicago of 1909, which called for expanding the city’s lakefront park system as part of a comprehensive regional approach to urban planning.
“South Works is the biggest missing piece in terms of completing Burnham’s vision” for the lakefront, said MarySue Barrett, the president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit advocacy group in the Chicago region.
The site is vacant except for a small brick building at the entrance, which will become a marketing center, and several massive masonry walls along an old boat slip that bisects the property. One of the walls would be preserved as a reminder of the area’s industrial past.
“I love the walls,” Mr. Enquist said. “They look like they came from a different civilization.”
In many ways, they did.
South Works began in the early 1880s as a division of the North Chicago Rolling Mill and was absorbed into U.S. Steel in 1901. For most of the 20th century, South Works was the largest employer on the city’s South Side with upward of 30,000 workers.
Over the years, the plant produced the steel responsible for such structures as the Sears (now Willis) Tower, the John Hancock Center and the McCormick Place convention center.
In the 1970s, however, U.S. Steel began consolidating its Chicago-area steel-making activities at its plant in Gary, Ind., and in 1992 South Works closed. The closing left a huge void in the neighborhoods to the west and south, which were largely populated by the families of steelworkers.
“If you walk through the various neighborhoods, it is still possible to talk to residents who either worked there or whose fathers and grandfathers did,” said Sandi Jackson, the alderwoman for the Seventh Ward, which includes the northern part of the site. “They have fond memories of South Works and want to see something exciting happen on that site.”
The site required years of environmental remediation and was also subject to several competing visions for its future before the current plan began to take shape in the early 2000s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/re...29chicago.html