They’re building a strip mall on the old, deserted blacktop lot–now covered with ice–out behind the Berwyn Avenue elevated stop in Edgewater.
Well, so long as you’re asking, alderman, here’s what the mall’s critics say. The mall will dislocate small businesses; divert revenues needed by other, more worthy ventures; enrich a developer named Charles Markopoulos (who could not be reached for comment) with a municipal bailout he does not deserve; and spur gentrification, which will uproot the area’s poor.
“We lost the lakefront to the high rises in the 1960s,” says Jack Markowski, executive director of the Edgewater Community Council. “Along Sheridan Road from Hollywood to Devon is the most densely populated lakefront property in all of Lake Michigan. There are 10,000 people who live there. At the time, the residents of Edgewater fought every single one of those high rises. The city argued that the high rises would increase property taxes and keep the middle class in Chicago. Maybe so, but we lost a lot of fine homes and beaches, and the quality of life suffered as well.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“In a nutshell, ONE is supposed to represent the poor and ECC the middle class,” says one north-side politician who has sought support from both groups. “Although, after a while, simple categorization becomes misleading; and when you think about it rationally, none of these squabbles makes any sense.”
The problem with the particular strip of Broadway Avenue that runs through Edgewater is that a lot of the land was once occupied by car dealerships, long since closed. As a result, the area lends itself to small-strip development.
“TIFs are one of the few tools left for economic development,” says Markowski. “They’re supposed to promote bootstrap initiatives and private-public partnerships.”
