DuSable Park is a former commercial and industrial site in Chicago. It is located at the mouth of the Chicago River that has been the subject of environmental remediation and is awaiting redevelopment into a public park. The project, first announced in 1987 by Mayor Harold Washington, is named in honor Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who settled nearby in the 1780s and is known as the "Founder of Chicago". The development at 400 Lake Shore began construction in 2024.
The park is located directly east of North Lake Shore Drive and south of Lake Point Tower and Navy Pier, with Lake Michigan to its east. To its north is the entrance to the Ogden Slip and to its south is the mouth of the Chicago River. The canceled Chicago Spire project had been planned for a site just west of DuSable Park, on the other side of Lake Shore Drive.
Following the construction of the original jetty for the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, lake currents were affected and soil was deposited at the area now known as DuSable Park. [1] In 1857, the State of Illinois sold 40 acres (160,000 m2), including the site later to be known as DuSable Park, to the Chicago Dock and Canal Trust. [1] In 1893, the company dug out the Ogden Slip to allow boats to pull cargo from railroads at North Pier and the DuSable Park site was filled in by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. [1] [2]
In 1948, the Chicago Plan Commission passed a resolution excluding use of lakefront property to only recreation or for harbor or terminal facilities for passenger and freight vessels. [1] In 1964, the Chicago Dock and Canal trust leased the land to the developers of Lake Point Tower. [1] Chicago Dock and Canal Trust sold the land south of the tower to Centex (now PulteGroup) with an option to build additional towers on the site that is now DuSable Park. [1]
In an effort to fight possible development, Mayor Richard J. Daley's administration enacted the Lakefront Protection Ordinance which forbid the land east of Lake Shore Drive to be developed. [1] In 1972, Centex filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago after the city purchased the land. [1] Eventually Centex dropped the option to build on DuSable Park. [1] The Chicago Dock and Canal Trust kept the option to build but agreed not to build on the site. [1]
In 1987, Mayor Harold Washington dedicated the parcel as "DuSable Park" in honor of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the first known settler of Chicago. [1] The Chicago Park District took ownership of the land at DuSable Park in 1988 via a quit claim deed. [2] Eight years later, Keer-McGee and River East L.L.C were named as companies responsible for investigating and cleaning up suspected radioactive contamination at DuSable Park. [2] The next year, MCL Companies absorbed the holdings to Chicago Dock and Canal Trust of DuSable Park. [1] MCL Companies then gave the land to the Chicago Park District and agreed to pay $600,000 toward its development. [1]
In July 2000, the Chicago Park District announced it was planning to lease the land to another developer to build a parking lot on the site. [1] [2] Following public outcry and the formation of the DuSable Park Coalition, the Chicago Park District indefinitely postponed the parking lot plan. [1] [2] Since that time, two public request for proposals were sent out on the topic of developing the property in 2001 and 2004. [2] Each of those public invitations ended in stalemates. [2] The Art Institute of Chicago tapped Martin Puryear to design a statue of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable which will be erected at DuSable Harbor, directly across the river. [3]
In July 2005, Christopher Carley of the Fordham Company announced a new development project called the Fordham Spire. [4] The Fordham Company pledged nearly $500,000 to assist in the development of the park, which was to adjoin the site of their new tower. [4] But one year later Carley failed to obtain the necessary financing for his project, and the development of the adjacent tower was turned over to Garret Kelleher of Shelbourne Development and the building was renamed Chicago Spire. [5]
In late 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the project may be going forward with a compromise on the design being reached, but no further financial assistance was promised. [3] In March 2007, Shelbourne Development, the new development company which renamed the adjacent project Chicago Spire, offered $6 million to finish the development of DuSable Park. [6] In early May of the same year, that offer jumped to $9.6 million. [7]
Shelbourne offered their own design of the park which included a northbound ramp onto Lake Shore Drive for the adjacent Chicago Spire. [8] To appease citizens and members of the DuSable Park Coalition, Shelbourne Development redesigned the northbound ramp to fit under Lake Shore Drive and use less park space. [8] The Chicago Spire was later cancelled in early 2010, due to major setbacks. [9] After additional remediation, a new plan was developed in 2023. [10]
The riverside revetment is in need of repair which may cost up to $5.7 million. [3]
Soil tests performed at the location of DuSable Park in December 2000 showed contamination by radioactive thorium. [11] From 1904 through 1936, the Lindsay Light Company processed ores which contained thorium to manufacture thorium impregnated gas mantles. [12]
It was suspected that after the plant closed, contaminated soil was dumped on the location of the proposed park. [1] In March 2003, the Chicago Park District stated that the thorium clean-up on that land was incomplete. [13] It was reported that Shelbourne Development would take soil samples to determine the severity of the radioactive contamination. [8]
In 2012, the Chicago Park District received funding from the EPA for remediation of the site, bagging the radioactive soil and shipping it to a Superfund site. [14] In summer 2013, the Park District website reported the remediation had been completed by September 2012. [15]
In 2024, Related Midwest announced the start of construction of its development at 400 Lake Shore Drive on the former Spire site. The first phase includes the build out and opening of DuSable Park. [16]
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is regarded as the first permanent non-Native settler of what would later become Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as the city's founder. The site where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River around the 1780s is memorialized as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles (251 km) that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center. Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chicago Portage is a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.
Brownfield is previously-developed land that has been abandoned or underutilized, and which may carry pollution, or a risk of pollution, from industrial use. The specific definition of brownfield land varies and is decided by policy makers and land developers within different countries. The main difference in definitions of whether a piece of land is considered a brownfield or not depends on the presence or absence of pollution. Overall, brownfield land is a site previously developed for industrial or commercial purposes and thus requires further development before reuse.
Michigan Avenue is a north-south street in Chicago that runs at 100 east on the Chicago grid. The northern end of the street is at DuSable Lake Shore Drive on the shore of Lake Michigan in the Gold Coast Historic District. The street's southern terminus is at Sibley Boulevard in the southern suburb of Dolton, but like many other Chicago streets, it exists in several disjointed segments.
Lake Shore Drive is a semi-limited access expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan and its adjacent parkland and beaches in Chicago, Illinois. Except for the portion north of Foster Avenue, the Drive is designated part of U.S. Highway 41. A portion of the highway on the Outer Drive Bridge and its bridge approaches is multilevel.
Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the north and east, according to most sources, although the city of Chicago recognizes only a small portion of this region as Streeterville. Thus, it can be described as the Magnificent Mile plus all land east of it. The tourist attraction of Navy Pier and Ohio Street Beach extend out into the lake from southern Streeterville. To the north, the East Lake Shore Drive District, where the Drive curves around the shoreline, may be considered an extension of the Gold Coast. The majority of the land in this neighborhood is reclaimed sandbar.
The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on 638 acres (258 ha) of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city.
Washington Park is a community area on the South Side of Chicago which includes the 372 acre (1.5 km2) park of the same name, stretching east-west from Cottage Grove Avenue to the Dan Ryan Expressway, and north-south from 51st Street to 63rd. It is home to the DuSable Museum of African American History. The park was the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Aquatics Center in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The Chicago Spire was a skyscraper project in Chicago that was partially built between 2007 and 2008 before being cancelled. Located at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, it would have stood 2,000 feet (610 m) high with 150 floors and been the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. When originally proposed as the Fordham Spire in July 2005, the design had 116 stories, included a hotel and condominiums, and was topped with a broadcast antenna mast. The building was designed and spearheaded by Spanish architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava and Chicago developer Christopher T. Carley of the Fordham Company. On March 16, 2006, the Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved the initial design of the building. On November 4, 2016, a court ruling brought the original development plan and the extended litigation over the nine-year-old project to a close. Developer Garrett Kelleher signed over the property location to the project's biggest creditor, Related Midwest, who announced that they would not build the Spire and released plans for a different project.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), formerly known as Rocketdyne, is a complex of industrial research and development facilities located on a 2,668-acre (1,080 ha) portion of Southern California in an unincorporated area of Ventura County in the Simi Hills between Simi Valley and Los Angeles. The site is located approximately 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Hollywood and approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Sage Ranch Park is adjacent on part of the northern boundary and the community of Bell Canyon is along the entire southern boundary.
The North Shore of Lake Superior runs from Duluth, Minnesota, United States, at the western end of the lake, to Thunder Bay and Nipigon, Ontario, Canada, in the north, to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in the east. The shore is characterized by alternating rocky cliffs and cobblestone beaches, with forested hills and ridges through which scenic rivers and waterfalls descend as they flow to Lake Superior.
Lake Apopka is the fourth largest lake in the U.S. state of Florida. It is located 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Orlando, mostly within the bounds of Orange County, although the western part is in Lake County. Fed by a natural spring, rainfall and stormwater runoff, water from Lake Apopka flows through the Apopka-Beauclair Canal and into Lakes Beauclair and Dora. From Lake Dora, water flows into Lake Eustis, then into Lake Griffin and then northward into the Ocklawaha River, which flows into the St. Johns River. Multiple parks or nature trails are present around the lake including Magnolia Park, Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, Ferndale Preserve, Oakland Nature Preserve, Dr. Bradford Memorial Park, and Newton Park, named for A. B. Newton.
Garrett Kelleher is an Irish real estate developer and businessman with additional corporate interests in finance, film and education.
The Gateway Tower is a conceptual proposal to illustrate a potential use of the abandoned site once planned to house the Chicago Spire in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side of Chicago.
The Maywood Chemical Company processed radioactive thorium waste from 1916 through 1955 in Maywood / Rochelle Park, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed Maywood Chemical a Superfund site in 1983 and has since been in the clean process.
400 Lake Shore is a building project in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, on the site of the previously proposed Chicago Spire development. Its plan features two connected towers with a height of 875 feet for the northern tower, and 765 feet for the southern tower.
The U.S. Smelting and Lead Refinery Inc. site, commonly known as USS Lead, is a superfund site located in East Chicago, which is located in northwest Indiana. The site includes part of the former USS Lead facility along with nearby commercial, municipal, and residential areas. Originally the site was used as a lead ore refinery with the surrounding businesses at the time performing similar operations. Through a history of redlining and racial discrimination brought on by the 1920 Urban Renewal Campaign, it is seen that East Chicago’s minority community is subject to the consequences of the contamination and has led to claims of environmental racism. The primary contaminants of concern for this area are lead and arsenic, both of which when in the human bloodstream, cause numerous health effects. The site is currently undergoing testing and remediation. This Superfund site is broken down into two Operable Units. The first, OU1, has been divided into three zones, these being the public housing complex and residential properties. OU2 includes soil at the former USS Lead facility, as well as groundwater in and around the site.
The Ogden Slip is a canal and harbor in Chicago, Illinois.
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