Never mistaken for a patient man, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appealed to the City's Community Development Commission for the rights to buy the 63-acre parcel of rugged land bounded by Roosevelt, Clark, 16th, and the Chicago River. The current owner, an overseas conglomerate, just isn't moving fast enough to make something happen on the enormous clearing. The land isn't all that easy to develop considering the forest-caliber overgrowth, likely pollution, and collection of active train tracks. It's also, of course, the site of the infamous Tony Rezko's failed 4,600-unit mixed-use development. Should the city get authorization to buy the land, they could use that threat as motivation for swifter action, or move ahead with the purchase and hunt for another developer— or better yet, multiple developers. [Crain's, previously]
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