Main & Chicago Avenue, Evanston IL - Update on a vacant lot

Feast your eyes on this ugly beast of a building!    It is what has been proposed for the vacant lot on the southeast corner of Main Street and Chicago Avenue.  Yes, it does match the other ugly beast buildings on the northwest and northeast corners of the intersection, but that doesn't make this a good idea. For those of us who live in south Evanston, this is another injury.

I see this vacant lot almost every day, and have come to appreciate the open space.  There used to be an old two-story commercial building at that location called "the Main," but it was knocked down by some developers right before the financial crisis.  I wrote about the loss of The Main when it happened.  The vacant lot is sometimes used by dog owners now.  It is good to have a vacant piece of land in the concrete valley.  The new building will increase the grimness of the landscape.  It also appears that the developers are not including enough parking for a multifamily development of this scale, so there will be more folks searching for street parking - already a scarce commodity in the neighborhood.

The new development will add a bunch of living units to the neighborhood.  Congestion is already a problem and this building will make things worse.  There will be first-floor retail space; the neighborhood is rotten with empty storefronts already.  I foresee more national chains/fast food places taking up the slots (we have a Subway and a Starbucks at the corner already; I expect Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread and the rest of the usual crowd of homogenized retailers.

I sound like a grumpy NIMBY.  Certainly we need tax revenues in our town, but it isn't clear that this development will make a significant difference (especially in view of the Tax Increment Financing deal that the city government has awarded to this parcel). I know that this vacant lot needs to be filled and the location at the transit hub of Main and Chicago makes this a great place for a high rise.  Nevertheless, the proposed structure will not be attractive and will increase the hassle of living in the area.  Maybe I am wrong and it will be prettier in real life than it is in an artist's sketch.  Maybe the congestion won't be any worse.  But I think these outcomes are quite unlikely.

For anyone who is interested, here is a link to the presentation the developers made last fall to a community meeting.

What's Happening at the Corner of Main & Chicago in Evanston, Illinois

In a word, nothing. The developers that got the plan approved to knock down The Main building have been unable to get enough condo pre-sales to secure construction financing for the building. With the housing industry meltdown in full swing, it is unlikely that the construction will begin any time soon. I wrote about this piece of property back in December 2007 (here is a link). So now all of us who live in the area get to see an ugly chin link fence that encloses a nasty dirt lot. It make me miss the old building even more.

The neighbors got a little press coverage at the end of September when they staged a "protest." Here is the article from the Chicago Tribune:

Guerrilla gardeners attack!

Protesters wage environmental strike on muddy vacant lot in Evanston
Barbara Mahany and freelance reporter Brian Cox
September 29, 2008

In the end, they ditched the guy-in-the-gorilla-suit concept. Same with the cloak of darkness. Instead, armed with a slingshot, souped-up lacrosse sticks, a plastic whiffle-ball thrower and six baskets brimming with 724 seed bombs—yes, seed bombs—the motley mob of guerrilla gardeners attacked in broad daylight Saturday, brazenly circling the cyclone fence that wraps a big dirt lot at Chicago Avenue and Main Street in Evanston. "Bombs away!" cried guerrilla-gardener-in-chief Carla Hayden as the sky filled with a mix of clay, compost and wildflower seeds in what looked like a storm of flying falafel balls. Along with the meadow-making armament, the botanic bombardiers unleashed their vitriol for the developer who had dug a giant hole last year, left it to ooze mud and dust and then, last week, called in bulldozers to fill it after funding for a condominium tower dried up. "We need to take it back," said Charlotte Briggs, co-conspirator of Trowels on the Prowl, the ad hoc group that organized the attack and is plotting more seed-sowing operations. "It's just an ugly hole, with an ugly fence. "You have to think: How can you make change by doing what might not be in other people's plans but you can get away with?"Attempts to reap the developer's reaction were fruitless. But none of the gardeners seemed worried about stirring the constable's wrath."If we do," said Hayden, "I'm going to handcuff myself to a wildflower."

Well, at least the lot will be covered with wildflowers next spring. Wouldn't it be nice if the developer turned it into a park while waiting for the market to turn around? It will never happen....

Main & Chicago Ave in Evanston IL - A Historic Piece of Real Estate; GONE

I am not sentimental about buildings. There are architechtural masterpieces that qualify as works of art, and then there are old buildings that are not especially beautiful. The two-story commercial building at the corner on Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston was not a stunning architechtural gem. But the old structure had some serious history. It is now gone, torn down, a hole in the ground waiting to be filled by another nine-story, 71 unit generic condo building. The new building will be uglier and taller than the old building. Condo prices in the new "Main Street Station" development range from $299,000 to $540,000. With the decline in the real estate market, I am not sure these units will be absorbed quickly. Maybe the folks that really want to be close to the CTA elevated and METRA trains will shell out for these condos, but I doubt it.

So lets talk about The Main, as the old building was once known in my neighborhood.

Yes, it was a squat, unattractive structure, but it was old. I guess that it was built prior to 1900. It had a few decorative touches, but it was a pretty basic building that covered an entire block. In the early 1970's, a local real estate developer, Ed Noonan, decided to renovate the old girl and turn it into a shopping complex. This did not turn out to be a mall, however - the original structure was retained, the mechanical systems were updated, and the floor plan was altered to provide space for a variety of retail establishments on the first floor. Office space for various professionals (doctors, dentists, lawyers, massueses, etc.) was available on the second floor. Ed pulled off a rare real estate project, improved an old building and the neighborhood was better for it. He named the new shopping center "The Main." It was cool.

Shortly after the re-opening of The Main, a locally-famous and controversial tenant moved in. Amazingrace was a coffeehouse/collective that was born in 1970 on the Northwestern campus. It was awash in the hippie ethos of the time (leftist philosophy, organic food, folk music, communal living, etc.). Amazingrace and the university had a falling out, and the performance activities of the collective moved to The Main in 1974. Amazingrace became one of the best music venues in the Chicago area - and maybe the world - for three years. The collective expanded from folk into jazz, blues, soul and rock. In addition to Bonnie Koloc and Jim Post, Amazingrace hosted Luther Allison, The Siegel-Schwall Blues Band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Gary Burton, Jean Luc Ponty and the Grateful Dead. I saw Charlie Mingus there in late 1976, shortly after I arrived in Evanston from Berkeley CA. The Amazingrace space in The Main was unique - there were no food and drinks served (it didn't have a kitchen), and if I remember right, there were no seats. Patrons sat on a series of carpet-covered risers/steps that surrounded the stage. It was an awesome club, but it was run by anti-business/anti-profit hippies who were always bickering with each other. They fell behind on their rent, and the new owner of the building booted them out. A convenience store took over the Amazingrace space.....

Another wonderful business in The Main was the Main Cafe - a classic "breakfast all day" diner that is the mark of a quality neighborhood. The Main Cafe lasted quite a while - I think it was still operating in the early 1990's. The owners had the good fortune to receive the first license to operate a liquor store in Evanston (which is thriving on Davis Street); the diner business looked less exciting than selling hootch to thirsty college kids. I think there was a fire at the Main Cafe that precipitated its closing, but it has been gone for fifteen years now.

Travel agencies, carpet emporiums, optometrists, pizza joints, health clubs, and miscellaneous clothing retailers have all called The Main home through the years. And yes, the condo building will have first floor retail space, but it will probably charge higher rents, which means larger, higher volume venues (I am thinking that a Cosi's is coming to my neighborhood soon).

At one time, the intersection of Main and Chicago Avenue in Evanston was anchored by The Main, a nice old bank building, a convenient parking lot and the old Main Newstand. Now we have two butt-ugly condominium buildings and a construction site. Well, at least we still have the old newstand.


It is not an improvement to the area, that's for sure.

I understand that it makes sense to concentrate housing units around the mass transit spokes. I understand that folks like that "condo lifestyle" and they want to live in Evanston - close to Chicago but with suburban amenities. But the Chicago Avenue corridor from Dempster to South Boulevard is now choked with monstrous condo builidings that look like they were designed by the 1960's Soviet Union School of architecture. Why has this "progress" been so damned ugly?