By Marie Balice Ward
The Chicago Plan Commission voted 13 to 2 (with six not voting) to approve the plan for the Chicago Children’s Museum to be situated in Grant Park at the current site of the Daley Bicentennial Plaza field house (off Randolph Street, east of Michigan Avenue), despite serious opposition by local residents, community groups, and 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly.
The City's Department of Planning and Development already had approved
the project.
More than 200 people testified before the Plan Commission, a body appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, who favors locating the museum in the park.
Officials explained during the hearings that the Chicago Park District would maintain ownership of the land, while the museum would donate a new 37,000 square foot, $15 million field house, of which 12,000 square feet would be “usable” space. The museum would encompass 95,000 square feet, with an additional 5,000 square feet as a common area. The museum would fund all construction, with the Park District responsible for maintaining all of the structures.
Mark Sexton, the principal architect who would be responsible for designing and constructing the museum’s Grant Park location, said the museum primarily would occupy space in what is now the Grant Park underground parking garage, which would lose about 400 parking spaces. All of the museum’s three levels and the field house would sit below grade, with the park above. Service vehicles would use the lowest level for access, while buses and other passenger vehicles would access on the middle level. The highest level–still below grade, he noted–would allow light to enter the entire museum.
Workers would dismantle the parking garage and “lift” the park above it because of a problem with the garage structure’s membrane, Sexton explained. Although the garage project technically is separate from the museum and field house construction, the two projects will run concurrently.
A member of the Chicago Park District legal team offered his interpretation of the Lakefront Protection Ordinance, court decisions, and other legal issues raised by those who oppose locating the museum in the park. He said that because only one entrance will be above grade, and that entrance is outside the Grant Park perimeter, the museum would not violate the court rulings of 100 years ago in cases brought by Montgomery Ward to protect the lakefront. In addition, he said, while Grant Park is considered “historical,” the field house and garage are not because they were added subsequent to the historical designation.
He added that the underground garage, which was built in the 1950s, was not found to violate the Montgomery Ward rulings because it did not occupy the park’s surface. Also, the museum would create no obstacles to vistas. In addition, in his opinion the museum would not violate other protective issues within the various laws governing Grant Park and the lakefront because the museum qualifies as an institution for “public purpose” –another criterion governing Grant Park --as it will offer free admission days.
The plan’s opponents maintain that the museum’s use of the area is a “land grab” and is illegal. The struggle between the two factions continues, as opponents vowed to pursue legal recourse should all City approvals be granted for locating the museum in the park.
Organizations opposing locating the museum in the park include Save Grant Park, the New Eastside Association of Residents, the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), Friends of Downtown, the Fulton River District Association (FRDA), Preservation Chicago, and the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization.
"I believe that supporting the Children's Museum proposal to build on Grant Park would set dangerous precedent that would open the floodgates for other entities to lobby for their own locations on Grant Park," Ald. Reilly said.
"We deserve better than being presented with the proposal to relocate the Chicago Children's Museum to Grant Park as a fait accompli without the benefit of a thoughful planning process, which would have added clarity and provided answers to many of the issues circling this controversial proposal," said MarySue Barrett, president of the MPC board of governors.
"Let us not be the generation that destroys such a grand city legacy" as Grant Park, said Lawrence Gage, president of the FRDA.
The Zoning Commission is next in line to vote on the plan, which then goes to the City Council for approval, most likely on Wednesday, June 11.
