Intense Lobbying and Widespread Opposition

Chicago's City Council will vote on the much debated Children's Museum's proposed move to Grant Park this Wednesday. The proposal was approved the Zoning Committee on Thursday, June 5th, and was approved by the Plan Commission last month. In both cases the result was expected as Mayor Daley, who is pushing for the relocation to Grant Park, appoints the Plan Commission members and the Zoning Committee is filled with senior aldermen generally loyal to the mayor.

The outcome of the City Council vote, however, is uncertain. The Children's Museum hired professional lobbyists meet with aldermen over the past several months and more recently Michael Sneed of the Sun-Times reported that Mayor Daley is calling in aldermen one by one to ask for their support of the plan. On the other side, many respected civic groups and leaders have announced their opposition to the proposed move to Grant Park and are calling on the Council to prevent the CCM, which is a private institution which charges fees, from being developed in Chicago's front yard.

Widespread Opposition

Over the last several months, the editorial boards on both the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times have written extensively on why the CCM should not be in Grant Park. In May, the Metropolitan Planning Council and MPC President Mary Sue Barrett sent a letter to all 50 alderman opposing the CCM's proposal for its “lack of a publicly coordinated process to evaluate the best use” of the land. Earlier in May, the National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote to the Plan Commission, we "know that that principle of open common ground... is a fragile concept, easily eroded by just one small building here, and an addition to another there, until it is gone. Construction of another major museum in the park sets another precedent for the loss of ever more valuable historic open space." Other respected groups who have announced their opposition to the plan include Friends of the Parks, Landmarks Illinois, Preservation Chicago, Protect Our Parks, and Friends of Downtown. The Chicagoist, the Chicago Reader, and Division Street are among the many other news organizations and respected bloggers who have come out against the proposal.

Respected architectural critics Blair Kamin and Lynn Becker oppose the CCM in Grant Park and frequently write on the topic. From a recent essay entitled "Six Reasons the Chicago Children's Museum doesn't belong at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in Grant Park", Lynn Becker writes of the CCM's carefully orchestrated campaign, "Both directly and through its public relations firms, the museum has pursued an Orwellian subversion of language itself, redefining the clear concepts of "park" and "open land" to something more elastic to their purpose, and making even 100,000 square-foot structures seem to disappear."

Concerns about Precedent

There has been a lot of concern that allowing the CCM, a private institution, to develop in Grant Park it will set precedent and encourage other worthy attractions to try to locate in Grant Park. Indeed CCM's lawyer, Ted Novak, validated those concerns when posed a question about precedent at the Plan Commission meeting last month. He replied that other groups should be allowed to develop in Grant Park if they are able to meet the legal requirements. Opponents feel that the line needs to be drawn now before Grant Park is filled with private structures all the way to the lakefront.

Lawsuits Begin

In what could be the first of many lawsuits, on Thursday, June 5th, owners across the street at 340 on the Park sued for lack of notification required for all zoning change requests. Normally, all owners within 250 feet of a zoning change must be notified. The CCM says they followed procedure by using county assessor records which did not yet list the new condominium owners at 340 on the Park whose first residents moved in last summer. The lawsuit seeks to force the Children's Museum to restart their application process.

If the City Council approves the proposed move, the biggest legal hurdle for the CCM will be the four Illinois Supreme Court rulings upholding Grant Park's lakefront public ground “a common to remain forever open, clear and free of any buildings". While the Art Institute and more recently the Harris Theatre have been built in Grant Park, these structures were never challenged in the courts or opposed by neighbors. In fact, a test case to challenge the development in Millenium Park requested by bond issuers was quietly dropped, presumably because it was realized the development would be blocked.

By Lynn Becker:

Read full essay
Six Reasons the Chicago Children's Museum doesn't belong at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in Grant Park

Summary below...

"This has become far more than a fight over a museum and a patch of land. How this issue is resolved will have an enormous influence of the future form of the City of Chicago, and so we thought it an opportune time to summarize the reasons why the Chicago Children's Museum doesn't belong in Grant Park."

1. The very concept of the museum is fatally flawed.

2. The flawed concept for the Children's Museum has doomed any chance for great architecture.

3. If the Children's Museum rancorous campaign is allowed to succeed, it will poison public discourse for years to come.

4. Like the museum, itself, what's really at stake is beneath the surface.

5. The Children's Museum campaign subverts the very concept of public planning.

6. Open Clear and Free Remains a Vital Concept to the City's Well Being.


Read full article and arguments:
Six Reasons the Chicago Children's Museum doesn't belong at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in Grant Park

The skinny:

"Lyric Opera of Chicago has not endorsed the proposed new site for the Children's Museum, and did not authorize inclusion in the advertisement which appeared Sunday in the Chicago Tribune."

How many more of the listings on the ad are similarly bogus? Could the CCM's Astroturf campaign grow any more dishonest?

http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/2008/...ever-stop.html

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More along the same line exposing the dishonesty of the CCM public ad campaign.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....chitectur.html

Steve Rhodes writes in the Beachwood Reporter --

...

"Perhaps more interesting was the clear difference between Reilly/Jackson and Stone/Cardenas: one pair appeared smart, articulate and on-point, while the other pair looked like idiots. I'm sure you can figure out which was which."

"Here's a snippet of their discussion with some additional commentary from the Beachwood HQ Viewing Lounge."

Read on...
The Beachwood Reporter

See letter below by Toni Preckwinkle...

Attached Images

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