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| March 2008 |
EDGEWATER DEVELOPMENTS
News from our Business Districts
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Dear Edgewater,
The Edgewater Development Corporation strives to attract new businesses to Edgewater, shape developments in our business districts to best serve the entire community and give voice to a community vision for our business districts.
Read on to hear about some of our recent work or visit our web site to read more about us.
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"Rev Up The Red" - Red Line Charrette Report
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Community Vision Expressed
We are very pleased to release the Final Report on the Red Line Charrettes, the community visioning process held over a series of meetings in the first half of 2007. The City Design Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago has compiled the findings from these charrettes into the report now available at our web site here. We again want to thank the 156 participants in the charrettes and the 192 individuals who completed the online survey related to the charrettes.
The report affirms the value our community places on the Red Line transit resource and calls for further capitalizing on this resource to enhance the quality of life in our community. In fact, the report is already being put to use by the CTA and our elected officials to guide discussions on redevelopment around the stations. The Charrettes focused on 3 issues:
- CTA Red Line Station
- Urban Design of the business district adjacent to the station
- Retail offerings in the adjacent business district
The results for each of these three issues varies from station to station, but these general themes were common across the stations:
- Stations must be completely rebuilt or renovated to improve access, comfort and safety for the riders, as well as better quality space for commercial tenants.
- Density is appropriate near the Red Line stations and should be designed to enhance the pedestrian environment.
- The business selection in the districts should primarily focus on retail uses, as opposed to service uses.
The report includes a chapter for each station that summarizes the charrette results and includes visual depictions of many of the findings, including the urban design exercises. The report includes detail specific to each station on each of the three themes. For example, for the Berwyn Station the urban design exercise calls for more urban-style redevelopment of both the Jewel site and the block to the south that includes a strip mall and the old Del Ray. Check out the full report by clicking here. EDC was very pleased to partner with State Representative Harry Osterman to secure the funding for the charrettes.
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EDC Presents at National Conference
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EDC was invited to speak at the annual Rail-Volution Conference this past November in Miami Beach. The Mission of Rail-Volution is to "create a national movement
to develop livable communities with transit. Livable communities are
those that are healthy, economically vibrant, socially equitable, and
environmentally sustainable."
EDC was invited to present on building support for public transit through community activism. Adam Burck, EDC Executive Director, gave a presentation entitled "Edgewater Red Line Charrettes: Community Activism to Advance Transit Planning." You may view this presentation as well as all other presentations from the conference by clicking here.
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Help craft a vision for Chicago in 2040
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What kind of a world do we want to leave to future generations? That's a big question, but you could contribute your ideas by participating in a planning workshop tomorrow! The Edgewater Development Corporation is partnering with DevCorp North, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP)
and 7 other local organizations to present "Creating a VIsion for the
Chicagoland Region in 2040" on Tuesday, March 18th, 6 to 8 pm, at
Loyola University Centennial Student Union (Bremner Lounge) at 1125 W
Loyola Avenue. For more information, call 773-508-5885 or click here to visit DevCorp's web site.
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It's Good to Be Green All Year and Not Just on St. Patrick's Day!!
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by Adam Burck
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The Greenest Building is the One That Exists
Green Buildings and green business practices are rapidly entering the mainstream. So what makes a building green? Well, a recent Landmarks Illinois Preservation Brief (#106, 2/2008) delved into this topic and we provide some key excerpts here: - Building reuse is the ultimate form of sustainable architecture
- The measurement of green, particularly as it applies to buildings, has been too focused on new construction.
- Data shows that historic commercial buildings are just as energy efficient as buildings today."
- New energy efficient technologies can be adopted to historic buildings to greatly improve their energy efficiency.
So, it seems, what's old is new again. The reuse of old buildings qualifies as cutting edge "green".
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Contact Information
phone: 773-506-4016
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Join our mailing list!
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This publication was funded in part by the City of
Chicago Department of Planning and Development TABG Program and does
not necessarily represent in whole or in part the viewpoints of the Department of Planning and Development.
Adam Burck, Executive Director
Edgewater Development Corporation
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