(Better) Performing Seals find new home at Maggie Daley Park

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It all ties into one of Richard M. Daley's patented 99-year privitization deals. In 2006, a consortium led by Morgan Stanley paid Chicago $563 million for a 99 year lease of the four parking garages along the city's lakefront.  $208 million went to paying off the bonds for Millennium Park, and $65 million  was earmarked for rebuilding the East Monroe Street garage.

The East Monroe Street garage is important because it's beneath what was Daley Bicentennial plaza, completed in 1976, a 20-acre park south of Randolph and east of Columbus constructed over former Illinois Central railyards.   The rebuilding of garage included fixing leaks that threatened to inundate the parked cars with water.  The reported cause of those leaks was the deterioration of the old membrane that separated Daley Bi from the roof the garage beneath.  The only solution?  Tearing out the park - removing every flower, ever lawn, every tree, every last inch of earth in order to be able to replace the membrane. 

That event was seen by Richard M. Daley as the perfect opportunity to jam a new building for the Chicago Children's Museum onto the site.  After that effort collapsed, the city turned to noted designer Michael Van Valkenburgh to come up with a new design for the replacement park, now renamed to honor the late Maggie Daley.

We're at the midpoint of that project.  Right now, the new membrane is being put down over the concrete roof of the garage, and it's expected it will result in longer-lasting, better performing seals.  According to Grant Park Conservancy's Bob O'Neill . .  .

The new waterproofing is a hot applied monolithic membrane system that has a series of protection layers and drainage layers above it.  The benefit of this system is that it has minimal seams because of its hot-applied installation.  There are several drainage measures in place to convey water off of the roof before it even comes in contact with the membrane itself.  As a result, a much longer lifespan is anticipated from this system than the previous installation.

rendering: Michael Van Valkenburgh

Which would be really good, because it would be a scandalous loss to have to rip out Van Valkenburgh's new park after only a few decades. 

Maggie Daley Park is now scheduled to open in October of next year.  The Tribune recently reported that the city was about to award a $42.5 million contract to Walsh Construction to construct the park, which now has an estimated cost of $55 million.  That compares to the roughly $35 million Chicago Park District Director of Development Gia Biagi said was available from the lease proceeds. Biagi talked about private funding making up the difference.

The Park District has given Maggie Daley Park its own website.  It includes regular updates, and two cool webcams that give wide-angle views of the site, letting you follow the progress of construction in real time.

Read More:

Maggie Daley Park (official website)

Forever Open Clear and Free (except when it comes to me) -The Battle Against Building a new Chicago Children's Museum in Grant Park

A Portrait of Mayor Daley's "Nowhere"

Goodbye Daley Bi: Hello Maggie Daley Park - stripping North Grant Park bare

BP Gehry Now Actually Bridge to Nowhere (Temporarily)

Reinventing Daley Bi

Van Valkenburgh on Daley Bi, North Grant Park

Privatization and the Public Interest (a report from Illinois PIRG)

The Chicago Parking Garage Leases (Civic Federation Report)

Why Must the Cancer Survivors Garden Go Begging?

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The Tribune's Mary Schmich had a great article recently on the Chicago Cancer Survivor's Garden, the lovely 2-and-a-half acre setting east of Daley Bicentennial Plaza created in 1996 with a million dollar gift from cancer survivor Richard A. Bloch, co-founder of H&R Block.  The garden's signature visual element is a slice of Chicago history, the stately columns . . .

that are remnants of Henry Ives Cobb's 1905 domed Federal Courthouse, demolished to make way for the Mies van der Rohe designed Federal Center.

Now, the Cancer Survivor's Garden is facing an uncertain future.  A private donation that has funded the garden's upkeep has run dry, and as Schmich quotes Bob O'Neill, "Who's going to pay?  That's the issue."

And he almost had me convinced. According to Schmich, "For top-notch planting, repair and maintenance, the summer tab alone is $60,000."  Let's get a committee together.  Put up a Facebook page.  Get the fund-raising going. 

Until I started to do some research on the web.  I soon found dozens of pages testifying to the fact that the garden appears to be a very popular place for weddings.  Looking at the pictures, you can understand why.  Then I stumbled across the Chicago Park District's Information and Rates brochure.  It tells me the garden occupies over 13,000 square feet, including all the landscaped areas, and that it can accommodate up 1,400 people, if you don't mind a little a crowding.

And then I came across this:

So, at $3,150 per, how much does the Park District rake in each year from event rentals?   Tell me again, why is there no money to maintain the garden?

Sackcloth and ashes, of course, is the order of the day.  We don't have money to maintain the garden.  We don't have money for the Cultural Center.  We don't have money  for this and for that.  Tough times.  So sorry.

Except, of course, when Mayor Rahm Emanuel snaps his fingers, and shakes down corporations for over $37 million to cover the costs of the NATO summit.  The money flows like water.

". . . the summer tab alone is $60,000."

And it's about to become a gusher.  In 2009, the Ricketts family came up with $845 million to buy the Chicago Cubs.  This year, they're finding, with no apparent strain, well over $125 million to pay their players to uphold a century-old tradition of not winning a World Series and being a pretty sure thing to finish the season in full retreat from the .500 mark.

The Ricketts have money to burn, but they'd rather burn ours, and now the news is that Emanuel is close to agreement on how best to shovel not just tens, but possibly hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds to the Ricketts so they can remodel Wrigley Field.  The technique - the diversion of amusement tax revenues or some other updated TIF scam - has yet to be revealed, but the result is already clear:  another massive slush fund benefiting the super rich and the super powerful, paid for by sapping general revenues that support the staple functions of the city.

". . . the summer tab alone is $60,000." 

To summarize: we must all reach into our pockets and pay again to keep a small gem like the Cancer Survivors Garden which is probably already paying for itself.  So we can subsidize Wrigley Field, so the Ricketts can keep enough loose change in their pockets to pay Alfonso Soriano $17 million a year.

And so it goes in Chicago, the city of sheep.

Do you think we could trade Soriano to the Yankees for a garden, several curators, a battalion of arts teachers,  restored library hours, and a mayor to be named later?