News that the massive Lincoln Yards site is up for sale creates an opportunity to completely rethink how this 53-acre swath of the North Side should be developed.
The now-seemingly defunct Sterling Bay proposal with a master plan by the local office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) was announced in 2018 and approved by the City Council in 2019. From its inception, it has suggested a grotesque Manhattanization of the North Side that promised to drain development juice from projects across the city.
The site is exceptional: The North Branch of the Chicago River winds through its full length, offering an opportunity to weave parkland through the development. This project should be a catalyst for the surrounding Lincoln Park and Bucktown neighborhoods. But it should not be a piece of transplanted New York that might be at home in a third-tier city in China. While the existing master plan is not entirely bad, it is bad enough to require a major rethink.
For starters, the scale is completely wrong. The predominant neighborhood fabric of Chicago is one- to three-stories tall. There has always been a place for larger and taller buildings, but in particular circumstances. Major north-south and east-west streets are typically more commercial in character and can usually support denser mixed-use structures. The city’s embrace of transit-oriented development (TOD) in recent years has built on these previous patterns, encouraging taller apartment buildings in close proximity to CTA stations. The effect of this change is apparent along the Blue and Red lines on the North Side: It’s now possible to scan the otherwise low-rise skyline of these neighborhoods and see the new high-rises popping up around the “L” stops.
But the additional density that TOD allows is predicated on its proximity to public transportation. Such development can be added to an otherwise lower-density neighborhood without flooding the area with cars — both on the streets and stored in garages. While Lincoln Yards is near the Clybourn Metra station, it’s too far from the Blue, Brown and Purple lines to merit such upzoning. Much of its proposed additional development would overburden the surrounding streets and neighborhoods. At a minimum, a reset from the too generous bonuses set by the Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot administrations is in order.
The existing plan contemplates a series of new towers between 325 feet and 650 feet high. The top of this scale would create buildings higher than anything that now exists outside the Loop and its immediate surroundings. There is nothing in the character of Lincoln Park and Bucktown that suggests that this is the place for such oversize development.
While Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously quipped that “less is more,” no real estate developer has really embraced this philosophy. They want more buildings, more floor area ratio, more height — because each of these can provide more money. More is generally attractive to the city as well — more can generate greater tax revenues. But it’s up to the city to safeguard the quality of development as well, and that’s a lot trickier to mandate.
I’ve written before about how our current glut of mega-projects ensures that many, perhaps even all of them, may never come to pass. Ambition is good, but it’s clear that the city’s economy cannot absorb Lincoln Yards, the 1901 Project, The 78, Bronzeville Lakefront and the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park (IQMP) all at the same time.
The master plan has always suggested a substantial urban park as a centerpiece for the development, proposing that 21 of the 53 acres become parkland. But what if the entire site becomes a new park? And let’s sponsor an international competition to engage the best landscape designers and architects to envision a civic amenity that can surpass The 606, the Chicago Riverwalk and Millennium Park.
It’s not even that big of an idea.
The Lincoln Yards property is quite a bit smaller than our big parks. Lincoln Park is 22 times larger; Jackson Park is 10 times larger; Washington Park is seven times larger; Humboldt Park is four times larger; Garfield and Douglass Parks are three times larger. The site is larger than some; Lincoln Yards is about twice the size of Millennium Park.
When scaled against these parks, it’s actually a rather modest proposal.
Until recently, the industrial uses on the Lincoln Yards site divided the communities on either side of the river. This is a chance to bring these neighborhoods together around a shared resource that would draw visitors from across the city.
We’ve seen the Chicago River become an important civic amenity in recent years. The Lincoln Yards site would be the best opportunity to do something important around the river since the Riverwalk. This is a unique chance to create a 21st century park that could draw better development to this area while making it an incredibly attractive place to live and work near. The new master plan for the site should begin with the river and parks as its most salient feature.
This site has been home to manufacturing, a good source of jobs, but a bad neighbor for just about any other use. For decades, residential development has occurred to the east and west despite the significant adverse health consequences for neighbors.
Spanning both banks of the river, a new urban park covering this site would provide a substantial urban amenity to all the neighborhoods that surround it.
Chicago needs more public space. At a moment when the city has chosen to wall off Millennium Park, we need more places where we can congregate and recreate together. Genuinely public space provides innumerable dividends. In Donald Trump’s America, when everything seems up for sale, this is an opportunity to push back and create new democratic spaces that will nourish our communities and endure for centuries. And it’s an idea Daniel Burnham wouldn’t have considered all that big.
Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan’s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
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