Just about everybody agrees that crossing North Columbus Drive in the corridor between North Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier is perilous for pedestrians.
Cars barrel along the wide thoroughfare as if it were an expressway, and the walk lights last just long enough for walkers to avoid getting killed.
The problem will only be exacerbated when increased throngs traverse the road after development of the area is completed. Perhaps a dozen high-rises, three hotels, and 37 movie screens will bring in thousands of new residents and masses of visitors. And they’ll all somehow want to cross Columbus.
Many will take the free trolleys, presumably, and a new transportation management association involving the developers and the city will address increasing the capacity, frequency and route of the trolleys, which are now sponsored by Navy Pier.
But the panel will also be searching high and low for a plan to get foot-travelers across Columbus Drive. Literally high and low.
Richard Hocking, a vice president at traffic consultants Barton-Aschman Associates, which was hired by the city to review development plans in the corridor, said one of his firm’s suggestions was to extend further east the upper level of East Illinois Street, built a few years ago, so that it goes over Columbus.
That plan would allow pedestrians a natural link between Michigan Avenue and the heart of developer Dan McLean’s River East project.
But Charles Landefeld, project manager for River East, said he wasn’t aware of any such proposal. He had, however, heard about the concept of a pedestrian route underneath Columbus Drive where it rises south of Illinois Street to go over the Chicago River.
“I don’t think the specifics have been worked out,” he said.
Breakfast at Foot Locker? State Street and Michigan Avenue have always been as different as chalk and cheese, as the Brits say, but New York’s Venator Group, formerly Woolworth Corp., reportedly will try to give the Great Street more of the Mag Mile look.
Venator is hiring Elkus Manfredi Architects of Boston to do a $3 million revamp of the old Woolworth Store at 18 N. State St. into a venue for Foot Locker and Lady Foot Locker, which the company is focusing on as it shuts down all its dime store operations.
Elkus Manfredi designed the retail strip anchored by Tiffany & Co. on the west side of Michigan Avenue between East Superior Street and East Chicago Avenue.
That project by Chicago developer Thomas Klutznick has four facades on one building combining classicism and modernism to form a streetscape that some deride as a stage set but that others say blends in with the avenue’s elegance.
The Boston architects reportedly are thinking of a similarly swank look for the State Street store. But then, even Lady Foot Locker is not Tiffany.
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Rear window: Only rarely does the threat of having your window broken increase the value of your real estate; but then, Chicago is a place with special traditions.
Sheldon Good & Co., a Chicago real estate auction house that has recently handled hard-to-value properties ranging from an exotic game farm in Wisconsin to grain elevators on Lake Michigan, will bang the gavel Thursday on a building whose price could take on mystical dimensions.
The property is a three-story house at 1038 W. Waveland Ave., across the street from Wrigley Field, with a roof-top deck overlooking left field.
This could hardly be a better time for such an auction. Not only is the North Side market as hot as it’s ever been, but Sammy Sosa is showering the neighborhood with home run balls like pennies from heaven.
“Sosa has yet to break a window there, but he did hit the building Saturday night,” crowed Steven Good, chief executive officer of the firm. Sosa clobbered a three-run shot over Waveland, his second of a game the Cubs won from the Phillies.
Good said the owner thought an auction would be a good way to realize the value of something truly unique. “What price is the view?” asked Good.
The auction will be held at the Sheraton Gateway Suites in Rosemont Thursday night, with the opening bid set at $175,000, said Good.
Bidders, however, should be advised that the Cubs’ cycle is even more subject to downturns than the real estate cycle.