There's been plenty of talk about McCaffery Interests' redevelopment of the six-acre Children's Memorial Hospital campus in Lincoln Park over the past few days, but still no details about McCaffery's plans have emerged. Does the developer even have a plan? "Basically, there are concepts, but the developer doesn't want to go over the community's head,' Padraic Swanton from the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce told RedEye. "From a chamber perspective, being a good neighbor perspective and a public relations perspective, it's brilliant." That appears to be McCaffery's strategy: Play everything very close to the vest while championing this 'community engagement' rhetoric. If nobody knows exactly what McCaffery and architect Joe Antunovich are planning, there'll be nothing to get neighborhood NIMBYs and armchair critics riled up.
However, here's what we do know: The development will be a mix of housing and retail with a "town center" to anchor the development. Some of the white brick buildings from the existing hospital campus will likely be demolished and replaced with new residential buildings and "special gathering places." Antunovich has been talking about restoring some of the architectural details on several of the red brick buildings, and he tells the Architect's Newspaper that the hospital's 800 parking spaces would likely remain. Community meetings in 2009 produced a set of guidelines for the development, restricting McCaffery from building anything taller than the existing buildings. And according to Crain's, construction won't begin before 2013.
· McCaffery & Antunovich reimagine Children's Hospital site in Lincoln Park [A/N]
· With developer lined up, reshaping Children’s Memorial site begins [RedEye]
· McCaffery tackles Children's Hospital redevelopment as South Works project lags SUBSCRIBERS ONLY [Crain's]
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