Is the biggest chunk of vacant land on Chicago’s lakefront, once home to U.S. Steel Corp.’s legendary South Works mill, finally going to get developed and become a vibrant link in the city’s renowned chain of shoreline parks?
As Frank Livak, a 64-year-old former machinist at the mill, fished Tuesday along the site’s enormous slip, he voiced skepticism about a Spanish housing developer’s nascent plan to build as many as 12,000 homes there.
"You got a hell of a lot of vacant lots" already in the neighborhood, Livak said.
Anyone familiar with the litany of big plans and bigger flops for the South Works site, which sprawls from 79th Street on the north to 91st Street on the south, is likely to echo Livak’s doubts.
South Works back on the market Robert Channick
Looking for some beachfront property close to the Loop? South Works, a massive, long-vacant U.S. Steel site along Lake Michigan, is back on the market.
U.S. Steel, which abandoned redevelopment plans for the 430-acre site earlier this year, is offering it up to potential buyers as a “clean slate,”…
Looking for some beachfront property close to the Loop? South Works, a massive, long-vacant U.S. Steel site along Lake Michigan, is back on the market.
U.S. Steel, which abandoned redevelopment plans for the 430-acre site earlier this year, is offering it up to potential buyers as a “clean slate,”…
(Robert Channick)
It’s been nearly 25 years since the 1992 closing of the mill, which once employed thousands of people and served as a lifeblood for the neighborhoods around it. Just about all that remains of the demolished mill are unused rail lines and massive concrete walls, roughly 30 feet high and 2,000 feet long. Cranes would lift the raw materials for making steel from ore boats docked in the slip and deposit them between them the walls.
The list of failures is long. A plan to build a Solo Cup factory on the site fizzled about 10 years ago. So did a $4 billion plan, by Chicago-based McCaffery Interests and Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, which envisioned more than 13,000 homes and a 1,500-slip marina. After parting ways with McCaffery, U.S. Steel put the parcel up for sale last year.
Now, a joint venture led by Barcelona Housing Systems, which makes modular housing, is reportedly closing in on a purchase of the 430-acre property.
The firm’s website describes plans for 12,000 homes, to be built in four phases of about 3,000 homes each. Renderings show homes laid out in a hollow-square patterns with green spaces in the middle. There would be a marina along the slip, new parkland along the lakefront and plazas interspersed among the modest houses.
While the bird’s-eye view renderings look rough, almost mechanical, as preliminary plans often do, the local alderman insists this is no pipe dream.
South Works site Alex Garcia / Chicago Tribune 2013 Looking north across the extension of Lake Shore Drive, which runs through the site of U.S. Steel Corp.’s old South Works plant. Looking north across the extension of Lake Shore Drive, which runs through the site of U.S. Steel Corp.’s old South Works plant. (Alex Garcia / Chicago Tribune 2013)
"I think it’s very real," said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, 10th. "It’s not just going to be a big Mariano’s sign in the middle of a field saying ‘Mariano’s coming soon.’"
At this early stage, details are hard to come by. Calls to the North American office of Barcelona Housing Systems in San Francisco were not returned. Real estate brokers Cushman & Wakefield, which rebranded the site as 8080 Lakeshore after being hired by U.S. Steel to sell the parcel, also did not return calls. A spokeswoman for U.S. Steel declined to comment.
Yet some details are trickling out.
Barcelona Housing Systems wants to build a factory to make the components of the houses on the site, Garza said. She was impressed by the firm’s construction techniques, which do not place houses atop concrete foundations but bolt them into the ground. BHS’ modular houses are put together like Legos and are expected to be relatively inexpensive.
And the alderman does not expect buried residue from the mill to pose health and safety problems.
"I grew up in this neighborhood. I’m OK," she said. "I don’t have two heads."
2 longshot South Side sites out of running for Obama library Melissa Harris and Dahleen Glanton,
The Barack Obama Foundation has begun informing bidders for the presidential library that they will not advance to the next round, with two South Side long shots being told they’re out of the running.
Paula Robinson, managing partner of the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership, said she…
The Barack Obama Foundation has begun informing bidders for the presidential library that they will not advance to the next round, with two South Side long shots being told they’re out of the running.
Paula Robinson, managing partner of the Bronzeville Community Development Partnership, said she…
(Melissa Harris and Dahleen Glanton,)
A visit Tuesday revealed that, despite the lack of new building construction since 1992, the site is less isolated than it once was.
Cars now course through the parcel’s western side, riding along a 4-year-old section of Lake Shore Drive that is an attractive boulevard rather than an intimidating expressway.
Another boulevard at 87th Street extends eastward to the appropriately named Steelworkers Park, which brings visitors close to the massive concrete walls along the slip and offers expansive views of Lake Michigan. In addition, the site is less than a 10-minute drive from the planned Obama Presidential Center, which will be built in Jackson Park.
In short, there’s a nice collection of public spaces percolating here. But that’s just a beginning. If Barcelona Housing Systems buys the site, many questions should be on the table:
•Will its modular houses be durable? Will they offer architectural variety or resemble the monotonous housing complexes that have proliferated in recent years in China?
Will the firm make good on its promise to urbanize the site rather than turn it into a series of suburban-style enclaves? And will it make creative use of the concrete walls along the slip, putting distinctive cultural facilities like a South Works museum there, not just the usual shops and restaurants? Garza said Barcelona Housing Systems plans to save and reuse the walls.
What recreational activities, like a continuation of the Lakefront Trail and new climbing walls, would be included to draw people from throughout Chicago and the suburbs? And will the new development be economically inclusive, rather than gentrified, making room for continued use by fishermen like Livak?
If a marina is built, "we ain’t going to be able to fish here no more," the former U.S. Steel machinist predicted.
bkamin@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @BlairKamin
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