CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION

Ely Chapter of Lambda Alpha International and REIA

invite you to our third annual fall symposium on urban planning issues.

Friday, October 27, 2000
8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
School of the Art Institute
112 South Michigan Avenue

Creating the Livable Downtown

Downtowns in the United States, Canada, and the UK are experiencing a shifting mix and intensity of land uses. In Chicago, for example, downtown was once a place for offices and general merchandise retailers, surrounded by an industrial fringe. Increasingly, however, the residential sector has grown explosively, and institutional uses have expanded rapidly as well. These shifts raise questions such as:

·         How do residential uses and intense commercial uses coexist? For example, how are the service needs of high-rise office buildings met without negatively impacting residents?

·         Can industrial and residential uses be compatible?

·         How are cities responding to increased demand for services and amenities such as parks and schools?

·         Does downtown residential development eventually drive out the traditional uses? Where do displaced businesses go?

·         What happens to land values and the tax structure?

·         Do retailers, such as grocery and drug stores that are essential to traditional city neighborhoods, adequately serve new downtown residential development?

We will examine these issues using a “case study” format, examining and comparing the changing downtowns of Chicago, Toronto, and London.  Morning sessions include presentations by:

·         Tracy Cross, President, Tracy Cross & Associates, Schaumburg, Illinois

·         Paul J. Bedford, MCIP, RPP, Executive Director and Chief Planner, Toronto Urban Development Services

·         Peter Rees, Planning Officer, Corporation of London

The luncheon keynote speaker is Philip Langdon, author of A Better Place to Live.

Philip Landgon’s articles, reviews, and commentaries have appeared in national magazines including The Atlantic Monthly; The American Enterprise; American Heritage; Architectural Record; Preservation; Builder; and The Responsive Community. He was a senior editor at Progressive Architecture magazine from 1994 until 1996. He is currently a free-lance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut, and a contributing writer for The American Enterprise magazine.

Co-Sponsors of the Symposium are:

ARTHUR ANDERSEN, LLP

CHADDICK INSTITUTE FOR METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT

DePAUL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE

MCL PROPERTIES, INC

SKIDMORE OWINGS & MERRILL, LLP

Touring the Livable Downtown

Saturday, October 28, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Bus tour and lunch

Ø      The tour begins boarding Coach USA at the Burnham Hotel at 8:30 a.m., with Barbara Lynne, President of Near South Planning Board, leading the way through the Near South Side.

Ø      Leroy Kennedy, Vice President of Community Development for Illinois Institute of Technology, will guide us through Bronzeville and the IIT campus

Ø      We will tour the 1-million-square-foot Lakeside Technology Center, Chicago’s largest telecom hotel, with General Manager, John Derby.

Ø      The route will take us through the Chicago Museum Campus that now unites three internationally known museums in a pedestrian-friendly reconfiguration.

Ø      Jon Devries, Manager of Real Estate Advisory Services, Arthur Andersen, will guide us through Fulton Market, and industrial area on the Near West Side that is attracting residential and retail uses as well.

Ø      A tour of Block Y, a new-construction residential development, will be lead by the Bill Wolk, President of The Thrush Group.

Ø      The lunch stop at Goose Island Brewery (Chicago’s famous micro-brewery) will allow a walk-around tour of new and adaptive-use retail developments in the area.

Ø      Albert Friedman, President, Friedman Properties, will provide a narration on River North.

Ø      Amy Curran of the John Buck Company will present the story of North Bridge, a new 460,000-square-foot shopping and entertainment environment anchored by Nordstrom.

Ø      We will walk through the new River East Community, an entertainment, retail, hotel, and residential development by MCL Properties, which will be represented by Dan McLean, President, and Kevin Augustyn, Vice President. 

Ø      The tour will conclude with a stop at Navy Pier, the number-one tourist attraction in Illinois. The bus will return to the Burnham Hotel at 5:00 p.m.

Patti Gallagher, Assistant Commissioner, Strategic Planning, City of Chicago, and Mary Ludgin, President, Heitman Capital Management, and architectural guide extraordinaire will guide the tour.

Conference Description
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