For immediate release, 8/12/99
Contact: Bill Lavicka 312-829-5562; Steve Balkin, 312-341-3696, Email <mar@interaccess.com>
A university Chancellor from Naperville (David Broski) and an architectural company from Downers Grove (The Wight Company) are determining the fate for Maxwell Street, to destroy practically all of its old buildings and putting up parking structures with facades pasted on them.
Steve Balkin, a Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University and member of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, remarks, "UIC is being allowed to go forward with the same simulated-preservation plan that was revealed a couple of months ago. They don't understand cities and are being bullies. We had hoped that with a better understanding of the costs and benefits of this project and with added political support, a reasonable compromise could be reached. If need be we will go to the courts and challenge the constitutionality of the 1996 State Legislature bill that gave UIC eminent domain power in the Maxwell Street area. Using eminent domain to build expensive private townhouses and to favor one set of retailers over another is not a public purpose. A similar arrangement was declared unconstitutional in New Jersey and we will do the same thing here."
Bill Lavicka, a structural engineer, preservationist, and member of the Coalition says, "UIC is a acting like spoiled babies. They have got their way on 99% of everything for the South Campus and now they want it all. The UIC administrators won't budge because they live in the suburbs and have little understanding of cities, architecture, and preservation. They hate and fear Maxwell Street so much that they want to get rid of the old buildings, local businesses, and the people too. We couldn't get them to visit on the street with us. They want to make their decisions from suburbia behind closed doors. Broski lives in Naperville and hired an architectural firm from Downer's Grove that does no preservation rehab work; only new construction. UIC picking Wight, biased everything towards demolition."
Balkin, says, "the City acquired the land for UIC by eliminating the old market and now the City is giving UIC a TIF worth 50 million dollars. Shouldn't Chicago expect something in return? Where is the constituency here? In Chicago or the suburbs? Where is the balance?"
Independent Chicago-based architectural consultants were hired by the City Department of Planning and Development to recommend a preservation plan for the old Maxwell Street area that would also meet the needs of UIC and be of reasonable cost. These consultants were Chicago's top preservation architects, Howard Decker and John Vinci and, separately, the McClier Corporation. All endorsed Maxwell Street preservation and have come up with compromise plans for saving half the old buildings; no facades.
Balkin says, "I was at city sponsored meetings in 1998 with Howard Decker and John Vinci. They knew cities. They knew architecture. They knew preservation. They knew the workmanship on those old buildings could never be replaced. I have recently been to New York City visiting the Lower East Side, an area comparable to Maxwell Street. No one is tearing down old buildings there. Developers are rehabbing tenement buildings and designated it the historic Bargain District. Development and preservation can go together. At Roosevelt I teach in an historic building. Depaul's downtown campus is in a newly acquired rehabbed historic building. Other universities make it work. Why can't UIC?"
Lavicka says, "UIC is using cost as excuse not to do anything. But it's cheaper to save the buildings and if UIC wants to spend no money on this, they can privatize it. We can find developers for them who have a track record at making money doing historic building rehab. There are lots of them. But UIC doesn't want to listen. So they hire a suburban architectural firm with no preservation or rehab experience. And putting up an expensive parking structure on Maxwell Street, charging money to park is a sure way to kill off retail activity of anybody's design. In its computerized plans, UIC has moved that parking structure four or five times already. They can move it again. And UIC can use some of its empty ball fields if it needs more land."
More information about Maxwell Street is available at <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html>
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