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Donnie Seals Jr./Chronicle
Jack McDonald reflects on three decades of living in the South Loop area.
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South Loop comeback |
By Simone Orendain
Correspondent |
In 1962, the Chicago Tribune published an article that described Chicago’s downtown area, including the South Loop, “dead after dark,” referring to the lack of night life, or any form of life at all once the sun set.
The article named a sprinkling of remaining nightspots and mentioned the “good strip tease dens south on Wabash.” The South Loop was made up of flophouses, strip clubs and porn shops through the ‘70s, and ‘80s.
“The perception of the area was this was bum town,” said Barbara Lynne, the executive director of the Near South Planning Board, whose office covers Jackson Boulevard south to 35th Street. Columbia is a member of this board.
In the year 2000, however, the image of the South Loop has changed drastically. It is becoming one of the trendiest dwelling places in the city. Mayor Richard Daley’s push for gentrification has brought in a wealthier demographic composed of “empty nesters” and young professionals looking to live closer to their work-base. The apartments have all gone condo and land acquisition among prestigious institutions has run rampant, transforming the area into a posh corridor.
Jack McDonald, a resident of 1130 S. Michigan since 1970, recalls people asking him if he was afraid to walk in his neighborhood at night. “It wasn’t scary,” he said. “I felt no intimidation at all.” McDonald, whose son James McDonald is on Columbia’s music department faculty, has been pleased with the proximity of the South Loop since he moved there.
“There are many, many things within walking distance,” said McDonald referring to the accessibility of the Field Museum, the Art Institute, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation where he volunteers as a tour guide.
During McDonald’s early years in the South Michigan Avenue residence, three powerful Chicago businessmen hoped to revitalize the area and ensure its financial stability. They set out to tear down the railroad tracks and make the southern edge of downtown a lively place no matter what time of day. These executives would become the founders of Dearborn Park located at Polk Street south to Roosevelt Road, between State and Clark streets.
In 1970, Thomas G. Ayers, president of Commonwealth Edison and Chicago’s leader in business and civic endeavors, led the team that would spark a huge development effort in Chicago. The best solution to the South Loop’s dire existence was to build racially integrated mixed- income family housing in the area.
“That was an opportunity for development that most cities don’t have,” said Lynne. She believes Chicago is the only city in the country that has found real success in this type of development. The team overcame several financial, bureaucratic and planning obstacles to complete the residential neighborhood in the 300 acres behind Dearborn Station.
There were hairy moments in the Dearborn Park plan when, in 1983, people were slow to buy the units.
“Dearborn Park sold out quickly but was slowed by inflation in the early ‘80s,” said Lois Wille author of At Home in the Loop, which details the South Loop’s development. An aggressive sales campaign had most of the units sold by 1986.
While Dearborn Park struggled to come into existence, the three-block area north of Polk Street between Plymouth Court and Federal Street was undergoing redevelopment. This would become Printer’s Row.
In 1975, two Chicago architects, Laurence Booth and Harry Weese, sought to acquire the old Transportation Building on South Dearborn Street and convert it into loft living space. By the ‘70s it could have technically been a condemned building.
Consequently, surrounding buildings were bought for conversion.
In 1978, a half-dozen brave souls bought lofts in the allbut-abandoned area and literally excavated some of the old office spaces filled with piles of old publications including pornography. They knocked down walls, added partitions and created livable spaces. The big loft space attracted local artists.
Weese sold a 3,200-square-foot loft to an artist for $19,200 at $6 a square foot in the early ‘80s. Its estimated value in 1996 was $384,000.
Independent bookshop owners set up business (and also lived) along Printer’s Row as more and more artist residents moved in. The bookstores carried books on specific subjects, which attracted people from all over the city and suburbs to the area.
In 1984, the Near South Planning Board organized Printer’s Row’s first book fair. The fair is now an annual event and enlists the help of Columbia’s Book and Paper Arts department.
Columbia became prominent in the South Loop when the school purchased the 600 S. Michigan building in 1976. Thom Clark thinks the school is one of the forces behind the South Loop’s success today. To date the school has bought and leased 11 buildings in the area. The shared student housing project with Robert Morris College and DePaul and Roosevelt universities at 33 E. Congress is under consideration.
Loop businessmen, attracted to the South Loop’s accessibility, started to buy the spaces there also. Coffee shops, restaurants, local barbers and hairdressers, dry cleaners, realtors and the Hyatt on Printer’s Row all sprung up throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s.
The Near South Planning Board had originally projected the development, including the newer Dearborn Park II to end at 16th Street. “It’s gone even beyond our expectations,” said Lynne.
In recent years, developers have been able to build south to Archer and west to the New Chinatown Square with the help of TIFs, Tax Increment Financing, provided by the city. The developer receives bonds from the city to finance a project, and pays back the city in the form of a tax that is paid not by the community but by the development itself.
By 1996 the South Loop’s commercial business was booming, and the New South Association was formed to address the area merchants’ concerns.
According to Tommy Bizanes, executive director of the association, the group is a necessary link to Chicago’s local government. His group deals with the Department of Transportation, signs, markings and loading zones for the businesses in the South Loop.
The South Loop flourished in less than 20 years from $1.4 billion in new construction and renovation. Although Dearborn Park has a diverse racial mix it has not achieved its low income housing goal.
Today, one square foot in the South Loop costs $200, according to Rob Lara, a realtor with Galucci Realty located on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. Lara has sold units in the South Loop and notes that it’s “a very tight market. There’s a lot of development.” In his nine years as a realtor, he has been amazed at the real estate explosion in the area.
“The Dearborn homes were never intended to have low-income housing,” said Pacyga. Residents there are “not interested in having poor people in their schools.”
Residents have not used Dearborn Park’s only school, the South Loop School. Poor black children from the Hilliard Homes, a housing project just south of the neighborhood, attend the school.
This schooling situation contributes to the steady flight of young families from the South Loop. “You see a lot of 2- to 3-year-olds, not too many older children and no teenagers,” said Wille.
Typical residents of the South Loop are “empty nesters,” (retired seniors) and singles that have moved to the downtown area because of their jobs, according to Wille.
Plans are underway for a pre-kindergarten to eighth grade learning academy, according to Lynne. The new school, to be located at Federal Street and South Cermak Road, will have a small teacher-to-student ratio. The project will begin in the spring.
Jones Commercial Magnet High School will undergo redevelopment to attract more residents to the South Loop, according to Bizanes. “We need more population density,” he said.
Jones Commercial’s expansion will drive out the 124-year-old homeless shelter, the Pacific Garden Mission, housed immediately south of the school.
Commercial plans for the area are also ongoing, said the city’s project manager for the South Loop, Terri Texley. A Jewel/Osco complex will be located at Roosevelt Road and Wabash Avenue, south to 13th Street. It will house small retail spaces such as a coffee shop and other stores.
Another home for the South Loop’s transients will also be closed. The Roosevelt Hotel, a single room occupancy hotel will be converted to apartments, said Texley. Developers closed on the property last month.
The Central Station residences along the South Shore Metra tracks east of Michigan Avenue will be completed and ready for occupancy in spring 2001, according sources at Coldwell Banker in the Loop.
A new South Loop Chicago Police station on 18th Street and State Street opened last October.
Lara predicts that Chicago’s development boom will remain stable should the nation’s economic boom come to an end. Unlike the east or west coast where real estate markets tend to be volatile, Chicago’s is fairly conservative.
“I’ve seen an amazing spurt of growth over the last 18 to 24 months [throughout the city not just the South Loop],” he said. “You’re going to get a nice stable appreciating market for the next several years. I don’t see why it would not happen. |
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