Tall & Urban News

After some aldermanic debate and occasional protester outbursts, the Chicago City Council approved up to $2.4 billion in public subsidies to support The 78 and Lincoln Yards megadevelopments.

The council voted 31-14 to green-light the 141-acre (57-hectare) Roosevelt Road/Clark Street Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district surrounding Related Midwest‘s $7 billion vision for The 78 in the South Loop. It voted 32-13 in favor of the 168-acre (68-hectare) Cortland Street/Chicago River TIF district, which would encompass Sterling Bay’s $6 billion Lincoln Yards development on the North Side.

The votes clear the way for both developers to begin a series of infrastructure improvements that would make both of the historically industrial sites more accessible. Property tax gains generated by the projects within the TIF districts will reimburse the developers for their upfront infrastructure costs.

Presentations from developer Related Midwest and architectural master planner Skidmore, Owings & Merrill outlined new details of the plan to transform the vacant riverfront parcel between Chicago’s South Loop and Chinatown into a new mixed-use neighborhood. Expected to take two decades and more than $5 billion to complete, The 78 is one of the largest single developments in the city’s history. The approved $551 million redevelopment agreement includes a new CTA Red Line Station at Clark and 15th streets and the realignment of Metra rail tracks that run through the site.

For the development’s staggering 13 million square feet (1,207,740 square meters) of mixed-use space, The 78 is seeking a surprisingly modest zoning designation of DX-5. For comparison, the Riverline/Southbank development under construction to its immediate north is working with denser DX-7 zoning.

The 78 achieves this with an abundance of open space and a plan that keeps the tallest towers—expected to reach as high as 950 feet (290 meters)—thin and narrow. The final design, number, and orientation of the high-rise buildings is still being worked out, but building heights will step down from Clark Street as they approach the river, maximizing views and giving the waterfront promenade a more human scale. A future water taxi stop is also planned.

In a nod to the past, a 7-acre (2.8-hectare) crescent-shaped park mirrors the path that the Chicago River originally followed before it was straightened in the 1920s. To draw people towards the current waterfront, The 78 proposes a number of “open space threads” cutting between, and even through some of the buildings.

Lincoln Yards, a $6 billion project aimed at redeveloping 55 acres (22 hectares) of prime riverfront real estate, will transform both banks of the Chicago River’s North Branch between Lincoln Park and Bucktown. Also master-planned by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the megaproject will be developed by Sterling Bay. It will include new office space, 6,000 residential units, and 21 acres (8.5 hectares) of open space. The riverfront development also calls for three new bridges, three water taxi stops, and an extension of the 606 Trail.

Presiding over his final City Council meeting before leaving office, Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised the approvals of both TIFs as crucial investments to expand the city’s tax base and help address its fiscal woes. “These are investments in the future that are not bound by the boundary of the (TIF) space. They actually will pay dividends throughout the city of Chicago,” Emanuel said after the vote. “I know there’s a lot of hard feelings, there’s a lot of strong feelings, and that’s OK. But at the end of the day, we’ve had that debate, and it’s time to move forward . . . and make sure that we have a city that is open for business and welcomes investments.”

The vote is a long-awaited win for Alderman Brian Hopkins, whose 2nd Ward includes Lincoln Yards, and who has faced sharp criticism over the project’s community review process. Reiterating his support for Lincoln Yards, he argued Sterling Bay’s infrastructure investments are doing the city a bigger favor than the TIF money will do for the developer.

“People talk about this as a subsidy to the developer. It’s absolutely the opposite…This development will subsidize the city of Chicago,” Hopkins said, referring to the $293 million in infrastructure improvements Sterling Bay will fund that will not be reimbursed with TIF money.

Alderman Scott Waguespack of the 32nd Ward, who was one of the most vocal opponents of using TIF money to support Lincoln Yards, said “lies and deception” have been built into the project from the start. “There were lots of documents out there that we were never able to get a hold of.  I hope that with the mandate that we have with the new mayor, that that changes, that it changes the way this council approaches government. That’s the inherent problem we have here. We don’t listen to the community.”

For more on this visit Chicago Curbed and Crain’s Chicago.