Son of Skyscraper

Many Evanstonians have spent money, time, and energy demonstrating their conviction that a downtown skyscraper is not in the best interest of our city. At the March 24 meeting, the developers, knowing that they did not have enough votes to get their project approved, asked for two weeks to make changes to the skyscraper. At that meeting, the aldermen generously allowed for a continuance, giving the developers time to re-group and provide a more acceptable project. Several aldermen warned them that they could not come back with simply a shorter building.

But, last night the developers did just that -- they came back with a 38 story skyscraper (plus 2 stories of additional height) and with almost nothing else changed. The fact is that, while the building is less tall (by 22%), the skyscraper is now wider toward the bottom, meaning that in terms of volume (units), we have the same building, just wider and less tall. The developers therefore ignored concerns about traffic, parking, pollution, demands on city services, etc. Even more galling, the developers also completely disregarded the concerns of several aldermen, who stipulated clearly that they had to come back with more public benefits and with a building that would serve the city as an economic engine. Incredibly enough (arrogantly), the developers came back with a new skyscraper that added no more public benefits, with almost the same retail space, and with no office space. The aldermen offered the developers the luxury of a continuance, a burden to the residents and the city, yet they came back with practically the same thing. Perhaps what confuses me the most is why the aldermen didn't simply vote on the project last night, since so little was changed from the previous project. The result is that we now have to spend more nights making the same arguments, wasting our time, wasting the city's resources.

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