Plans are in the works for one of the city's largest residential developments ever, a 70-acre project that promises to invigorate Chicago's southern lakefront.
Chicago-based Draper & Kramer Inc. wants to clear most of the Lake Meadows apartment complex and build a new neighborhood with 7,000 or more homes, including condominium towers and townhouses, according to Kimbal Goluska, a consultant to Draper & Kramer on the project. A new shopping center also would be built in the neighborhood, which is just south of Michael Reese Hospital and five blocks east of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Lake Meadows "is poised to rebound," says Mr. Goluska, president of Chicago Consultants Studio Inc. The neighborhood is "surrounded by things that are exciting and happening," such as McCormick Place, he says.
Stretching from 31st to 35th streets between Lake Shore and Martin Luther King drives, the project would mark a big step in a hoped-for rejuvenation of the south lakefront, helping bridge the gap between development around McCormick Place to the north and Bronzeville and Hyde Park to the south. It also would be near the Olympic Village proposed by Chicago in its bid for the 2016 games.
"It would make a tremendous difference for our community because Lake Meadows is sort of a gateway to our community," says Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, executive director of Quad Communities Development Corp., an economic development group in the area.
Draper & Kramer, which 50 years ago developed Lake Meadows' 2,033-unit apartment towers, has not completed the planning process for the project. But it has been in discussions with the city's Department of Planning and Development and with Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th), whose ward includes Lake Meadows.
The firm expects to begin presenting the plan to community groups in coming months, Mr. Goluska says. A cost estimate for the project wasn't available, but the total investment certainly would exceed $1 billion. Donald Vitek, vice-president of acquisitions and development for Draper & Kramer, declines to comment.
High-rises like this one, on Martin Luther King Drive between 31st and 35th streets, would be razed as part of the Lake Meadows redevelopment. Photo: Stephen J. Serio
DELICATE BALANCE
It's unclear whether the project would face resistance from Lake Meadows' current residents. Because Draper & Kramer plans to demolish almost all of the 10- and 20-story apartment towers on the site, tenants would need to find somewhere else to live, possibly in new buildings on the property. At the same time, the redevelopment would increase the area's population three times or more.
Draper & Kramer will need to strike a delicate balance, attracting new residents drawn by the site's proximity to downtown and the lakefront without stoking fears of gentrification and higher rents among the neighborhood's longtime denizens. If the developer can pull it off, Lake Meadows could have the same catalyzing effect on the surrounding community as Dearborn Park, a big Draper & Kramer project in the 1980s that spurred the revival of the South Loop as a residential neighborhood.
In terms of units, Lake Meadows would be the second-largest residential development in Chicago, behind the 8,000-unit Central Station project in the South Loop. It would rival a proposed project on the former U.S. Steel South Works site as the largest in the city south of McCormick Place.
Designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Lake Meadows was the biggest privately financed urban renewal project in the country when it was built in the 1950s on a former slum razed by the city. Though pioneering at the time, the development has a desolate feel to it today, surrounded by tall metal fencing and cut off from the city's street grid.
Its 10 residential buildings there are "high-rise islands in a sea of green space," Mr. Goluska says. Draper & Kramer aims to enliven the site by extending city streets through it and more than tripling its density.
With the residential real estate market in a deep slump and financing harder to secure, Draper & Kramer isn't expected to break ground for at least a couple of years. The firm likely will develop the site in phases over several years, allowing it to adjust to changing market conditions.
