gemgram wrote:
The City has the Sears building and opportunities for outside development of the site.
WM: I sat in on the meetings with the Chicago Lake Design Review Committee for years and every single developer who came along wanted city money one way or another. It was made a TIF area as far back as the 80s, I think. The accepted logic is that no one wanted to redevelop the Sears site unless they could tear down Sears. It was the neighborhoods around Sears which demanded that the building stay.
At the very same time, with the City having budget crunch that necessitates needed police officers to be cut from the payroll, the City Council and the Mayor begin to build a 120 million dollar downtown edifice library.
WM: I beg to differ. It was we who allowed the library board to build the new downtown library through an $140 million referendum. The lone voice against it was Wally Swan of the Board of Estimates and Taxation. Hindsight being so very clear, I can say that I think the library system would have been better off with a referendum of half that size and instructions to fix the downtown library and all the branches and put money into a paying account for acquisitions into the future. Hindsight and a buck eighty-three will get you coffee in some joints.
Why in gods name didn't they combine the Sears site and the library needs and create the biggest city library on the planet for 1/4 the cost of either one otherwise? Oh that's right, it just would not have been as cool a monument to their egos.
WM: It wouldn't have been downtown either. Somehow tradition seems to demand that library system headquarters be downtown. Libraries should stand alone, anyway, principally do to fire hazards. Further, the Sears building had to undergo massive abatements of lead paint, creosote, and whatever else before even beginning to undertake redevelopment. having the library system undertake such a project would be crazy. Talk about mission creep!
WizardMarks, Central
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