One of several River North tourist-trap destinations that uses its small parking lot to cater to visitors who haven't figured out the downtown parking situation yet. Developing the parking lot would kill the restaurant's visibility from Ontario, which is probably why they're hanging on to it.

Just across from Ed's, Carson's has a small lot right on the corner that would be an easy sell with all of the new residential developments in the area.

Perhaps the capital of the tourist-friendly stretch of Ontario street, which feels more like Orlando at times, this flagship McDonalds has a surface parking lot with about 50 spaces taking up prime River North land.

Hopefully it isn't sacrilegious to say that this parking lot, which fills up an entire block along State Street and Chicago Avenue, could be better serving the community as something else. The huge lot would make an attractive parcel for a highrise development, which could offer parking garage space to the church as part of the deal.

There are a handful of parking lots in Streeterville that are only placeholders for planned highrises, but this lot right on the riverfront doesn't have any plans behind it as far as we know. With the rest of the riverfront being developed like crazy, this lot will hopefully be the site of something new before too long.

South Wabash is home to the most parking lots on this list, and it's a good bet that the L tracks are to thank. Hopefully with the Chicago Loop Alliance working on a plan to bring some life back to Wabash, these lots will start turning into towers.

Another Wabash lot, one of three on the same corner.

These two lots have doubly bad luck of being bound on two sides by L tracks, but with all of the university activity nearby it's surprising nobody has plopped a campus or student housing development here.

Speaking of campuses, here's a lot right next door to Roosevelt University's new Vertical Campus tower that nobody's done anything with yet.

No design challenges here, this huge lot is a perfect square and wouldn't have to hide an entrance under the L tracks.

This narrow lot kills the cohesiveness of Printer's Row, one of the hotter sections of the South Loop. It might be too narrow to any developers to pounce on it, but we'll be glad to see this lot bite the dust.

Just next door to the brand new East-West University campus, here's a perfect contender for a South Loop residential development that would be steps from Grant Park and the revitalizing Roosevelt Road business district.

As Roosevelt Road in the South Loop continues to develop into a strong retail corridor to cater to the growing residential population, this surface parking lot for the Jewel Osco seems more and more like a mistake. That space could easily be used by some ground-floor retail with apartments on top.