The Chicago Park District unveiled scaled-back plans yesterday for the redesign of Northeastern Grant Park. A project necessitated by the corrosion of the waterproof membrane protecting the parking lot below, the district, along with the Grant Park Conservancy, seized the chance to remake some of the less-satisfying, stiff elements of Daley Bicentennial Plaza. The controversial Children's Museum plan for the site is looking dead, according to Gia Biagi, the Park District's director of planning and development.
Architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates focused on the need for more fluid crossings, and fewer right angles. The ice rink will be re-oriented on a meandering line and the tennis courts will likely have to move. "It would be very jarring to have these huge asphalt rectangles in there," Bob O'Neill, president of the Grant Park Advisory Council, said to the Tribune. Our first impression from the new rendering is that it looks like an Olmsted design, or maybe just a golf course. One sad by-product of the construction: the loss of large trees.
·Grant Park Plan leaves out Children's Museum [Trib]
·Official Site: Grant Park Conservancy
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