Details of plans to rehab and develop Navy Pier hit the pages of the downtown dailies last May with an explosion of optimism and good cheer.
Lake Point Tower residents are the most active. They’ve hired Scot Hodes, a politically well-connected downtown lawyer, to represent them. They’ve enlisted the assistance of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, which has a long track record of battling development plans. And they’re branching out, recruiting residents from other outer-drive high rises to their cause.
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“I respect the residents of Streeterville,” says John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority, the city/state body overseeing development of Navy Pier and McCormick Place. “I plan to adhere to their concerns, and I have no reason to believe they won’t be completely reasonable.”
There probably would have been no tussle had the pier expansion plan emerged two and a half decades ago. In those days, the area–roughly bounded on the west and east by Michigan Avenue and the lake and on the south and north by the Chicago River and Grand Avenue–consisted mostly of deserted warehouses and railroad tracks.
“Where are those boaters going to park their cars? That’s what I want to know,” says Peterson. “And what about the added noise and pollution of having all those boats? My point is that there is so much building but almost no planning. No one seems to know when or how to stop.”
The new authority was approved by state legislators last July, in the waning hours of the 1989 session. Suddenly, Hodes and his cohorts– as well as the old McCormick Place board–were unceremoniously dumped. The new authority was empowered with $150 million in state funds to rebuild the pier (Hodes estimates that substructure repairs alone would cost $90 million). Almost immediately they began letting contracts to begin necessary repairs.
At the moment, it’s unclear who has the upper hand in this fight. The authority can expect the support of the Tribune, whose spirited backing of urban renewal efforts–no matter how poorly conceived they are–has never wavered. Most likely, proponents of the development will tar residents as “elitists” or “extremists” who are selfishly preventing the rest of Chicago from enjoying a good thing. And backers will probably attempt to divide Streeterville into two camps.
