Last September the City Council OK’d a $7.1 million project that would tear down a historic hotel on Broadway near Lawrence, build a two-story condo complex on the site, and put more condos and a Borders in two adjoining buildings. The three had been sitting empty since Goldblatt’s vacated them in 1998, and the city hailed the deal, calling it a big boost for Uptown. It would give the neighborhood the bookstore it’s always wanted and some of the development it needs.
Long and Slogar pleaded with the city to move quickly on the matter, noting, “Some of our landmarks are in poor physical condition, under-utilized, or vacant. In the direct path of Chicago’s real estate boom, most remain unprotected against the capricious motives of tomorrow’s market.” Alderman Smith agreed, pointing out that Uptown’s architectural legacy was a strength that could be used to draw investment to the area. “I am writing in strong support of the Uptown Community Development Corporation’s efforts to secure a place on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks’ 1998 work plan,” she wrote in a 1997 letter to the city’s planning department. “Uptown’s history and historic architecture set it apart from other communities. While working to redevelop our commercial areas, we must find ways to preserve not only individual buildings, but the district’s character as a whole. This designation would help us achieve this objective.”
The proposal was left hanging until May 1999, when landmarks division staff finally conceded that it was dead for lack of local support. “Unless the community decides they are interested in pursuing local landmark designation, it is not our intent to spend any additional time” on the matter, wrote Jim Peters, deputy commissioner of the division, in a memo to Albert Friedman, the acting chair of the landmarks commission.
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It still isn’t totally clear why Upcorp and Smith changed their minds about creating a city landmark district. Long now says Upcorp never actually supported one, despite the letters saying it did. Smith says she was disappointed but flip-flopped because her constituents wanted her to: “To a certain extent I do what the community wants.” And why did the community change its mind? “Because when the various community groups got together and started looking at what it actually would take to restore these buildings,” says Smith, “they felt that they needed to build some flexibility in.”
By then the complex was dilapidated, but the Freed company saw buildings that could be marketed to the upwardly mobile professionals who were streaming into Uptown. According to Dennis Harder, Freed’s development manager, the plan was to demolish the Plymouth, replacing it with a sleek ten-story condominium building, and to rehab the middle and north buildings, turning them into condos with a national retail operation on the ground floor, perhaps a Borders.
There wasn’t much Freed could do for the preservationists. During the planning stages Harder sometimes talked about preserving the Plymouth. But by the end of 2001 his company had decided it had to be demolished. Its ceilings were too low, and its windows were oddly placed–which wouldn’t suit the needs of the buyers the company wanted to attract. “There are not really enough windows or windows in the appropriate places to allow you to develop the interiors of these floors for residential purposes that can be attractive in the marketplace today,” says Harder. “You can be talking about [ceilings] eight feet to eight and a half feet in some cases when you have some kind of floor covering. This is also a condition you don’t generally find in loft buildings in Chicago. They’re usually higher. In fact, they’re approaching ten feet instead of eight. So it makes these units really inferior in design and ambience to other units in older buildings that are reclaimed for use as condominiums.” Saving the facade, he adds, would be “enormously expensive.”
Within a few days he and Christie Phillips were meeting. “I thought the plan was destroying the character of the neighborhood,” says Phillips. “I was particularly moved by Linda Bubon and Ann Christophersen, co-owners of Women & Children First bookstore. They spoke up at the meeting about what Borders would do to their business, and I had to think about that. Why are we using TIF dollars to subsidize one large chain over a smaller locally owned store?”
