It was one of those looks-great-on-paper ideas that floats out of the Park District from time to time. They wanted to fill in a portion of Lake Michigan so that pedestrians could stand on a spit of land at the mouth of the Chicago River and watch the boats pass by.
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“I think that the Park District did not understand the significance of that water at the foot of the lake,” says Richard Race, president of Hydrographic Survey Company, an offshore surveying firm. “I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it’s an oversight. Those folks are in the recreation business. To them it’s just a nice piece of real estate. They just don’t know how the river system works.” Park District and city planning officials say they never intended to promote a plan that would harm industry.
For the most part, the original plan has been supported by civic groups. “We think it’s a great urban design concept, a stunning visual concept,” says Beth Davis, executive director of Friends of the River, a not-for-profit group. “The revenues generated from the marina could pay for pedestrian improvements and link the riverfront to the lakefront.”
In December 1990 the planning department released its “Navy Pier/Turning Basin Development Guidelines,” a 127-page booklet with photographs. The publication began with the statement that it was a draft to be revised (if necessary) and adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission, which oversees large-scale developments. Then the guidelines would become “the official proposal for how Navy Pier and its environs are to be developed. . . . These guidelines are intended to maximize the redevelopment’s regional and local benefits and minimize any negative impacts it might have on the surrounding Near North neighborhood.”
The city’s favorable reaction to the Park District plan left many observers confused. Did it signal a retreat by Mayor Daley–who counts residential and commercial developers among his biggest backers–from an industrial-retention policy favored by Mayor Harold Washington? If so, why had Daley previously promoted tax breaks for Goose Island industries? And why was the Army Corps of Engineers planning to dredge the north bank of the river to make it easier for larger vessels to pass?
On April 15 the Plan Commission held a hearing on the matter. So many barge operators and industrialists attended (one came from Michigan) that there wasn’t enough time for all of them to speak. In the meantime, Mosena has created a task force that includes barge operators and river-based companies to study the plan.
