I reader complained about the Village Theatre located at 6746 N Sheridan Road for painting these city owned bike racks a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to do something about it. I really could give a rats ass either way, but I figured the reader spent the time to bitch, I'd give him/her their due.
Here's a photograph of the bike racks. What do you think? Do you like the bike racks black or puke green?
30 comments:
I dont mind at all. Personally I think there are just too many anti-green-ites in this fine neighborhood.
Maybe it's the first volley in a new movement to claim ownership of our streets - with rainbows of color! Or, an expansion of the Artists of the Wall project? Whatever, it's an interesting idea and seems harmless, and it's a helluva lot better than gang graffiti.
Maybe one of our artists can tell us what shade green they think this is. Not being a artist, Puke is all I could come up with.
Oh, speaking of green, stay tuned, I'll have a real good news green story tomorrow.
i like it. its better than black.
OT.. did anyone else awake this morning to 2 gunshots coming from Rogers Park on Eastlake?
i'd say it was around dawn.
woke me up.
Kinda ugly, but it's not as if the theater is much to look at either.
To me, the black is best because when these start to show their wear, it's gonna show that much more than if it were black.
At least they are painted. The city got rid of the old green light poles (they were ugly), and replaced them with stainless steel. When these things get tagged, they try to remove the tag, but it doesn't all come off. You end up with a nice tag that will forever stand proudly for everyone to see. At least the old painted ones could be painted over again.
In a neighborhood with so much left to do, I'd say painting them any color is a step in the right direction. And to complain about the color, is to miss the situation, entirely.
The property has just been put up for sale ($3.5m) and Ron is trying to cover up years of neglect.
What property? Just the theater?
16,370 SF Mixed Use Building – Chicago, IL
Village North Theatre Building with Retail Component Including Starbucks and Bank of America
Sheridan Road Location Just Two Blocks from Lake Michigan and Loyola University
Near CTA Red Line and Metra Station in Devon/Sheridan TIF District
Over 36,000 Vehicles Per Day
$3,400,000
It's a cute building and plaza. I'd prefer the racks be painted the same dark green as the wrought iron fence, at first flush. But that's just my preference, because I'm really grateful to see that scruffy, weed-and-trash filled parkway cleaned up.
Notice that the building and its brick plaza are the beginnings of a great streetscape. The building could use a little bit of fixup, but it's still an attractive old building. If you look at this mixed use complex, and at the pretty Pratt Beach apts at the other end of the block with its plaza, and the 1200 W Pratt Bldg that is now being renovated, you could have a totally beautiful streetscape, except for ONE thing that doesn't fit- the pale beige 4+1 bldg between the Village Theatre Complex and the Pratt Beach. The 4+1 is not only ugly and commonplace, but it is built clear to the lot line, with no plaza, interrupting the flow.
Thing is, it's a decently well-maintained 4+1 providing decent, affordable apts, so I doubt anyone would buy it just to tear it down.
This block is a lesson in how to build a great -looking street and then mess it up with inappropriate building. An opportunity was lost here 45 years ago, when the 4+1 was built, instead of an interesting mixed-use building with the same setback as the strucures on either side of it. Such was the mentality that prevailed in the 50s and 60s, and it ruined our cities.
I definitely don't mind. It's a good thing when people take ownership of the area around them. I suppose they were trying to accentuate the Starbucks green. They failed in that regard, but barking about this is a big waste of bark.
That shade i believe is Kawasaki Green.
Better than the pigeon shit white. Like the bike racks at the metra stop.
Thanx neighbors - Andy and i live here too - for the tip on the availability of the Village North theater building property.
We've got one inspiring concept crafted by good neighbors for theater development on Morse Avenue. Could we do that again on this Sheridan Road site? What could it be: a movie house, performance space, restaurant?
Are the local folks from the Save the Adelphi Theater folks still around? Where's the leadership to do some creating community planning and put this together?
By the way, why do we have to find out about important opportunities like this by accident via a blog? Isn't there some official who could maintain a regularly updated, publicly circulated list of such things? Development insiders should not be the only ones tasked with the job of thinking about all the possibilities and finding support for new projects.
Whatever the outcome of the building sale, the vision for it can be shaped to meet community needs. It can enrich, rather than have a neutral or negative impact on, the quality of life here.
Would a combination of live theatre, film, and perhaps music, plus a restaurant work? After all, the theatre has 3 screens at least.
I had always hoped for film house like the Music Box, up in these parts. The Music Box is a little out-of-the-way, and I wonder if the market could support two film houses like it.
Lots of possibilities for this place. In my dreams, I see two or three levels of condos being built on top of the place, and the pretty terra cotta facade restored, with a great film-theatre-visual arts exhibition-music venue there that would work as an informal cultural center for the neighorhood. There is room on the second floor for gallery space..
Hopefully, one thing will trigger another, and the redevelopment of this great property will coincide with the completion of the 1200 W Pratt Bldg and the renovation of its ground floor commercial spaces and redesign of its plaza.
Ah, if only I had the capital.....
The Columbia-Pratt block club met with a potential buyer of the movie theater. He owns the ugly 4+1 on the same side of the street a block South. He bought the landromat 4+1 on that block and showed us plans of his desire to build a SIX-STORY highrise with a CVS on the first floor. He also said he wanted Columbia to be both ways to allow traffic to flow into the parking structure of his building.
We let him know both were bad ideas. That density was a major problem in that neighborhood and the best plan for that building was to create something the neighborhood needs, like a restaurant, etc. But he made it clear that to make money, he would have to build six stories which would be ugly, create mass chaos on that side street and generally harm the neighborhood.
He is under contract with the building but after that meeting I would not be surprised if he pulled out. It was apparant the neighbors would fight him every step.
I'm tired of how this neighborhood is continually being sucked of its life and potential by landlords who do not live here and could give a shit about what they build as long as they make their money.
burningsun, I will start comming to PACT meetings. I apologize for not coming before.
I'm glad you all let him know what a bad idea his plan is and that we will vigorously oppose it.
I was thinking two more stories of relatively large condos on the site, added to the existing building.
To me, the biggest threat is doing something that will destroy the character of the block, which I would like to see enhanced.
The worry is that some developer will come in and convince the powers-that-be that a six story building is the only way that a property on that corner will be profitable.
If indeed that happens, then 'there goes the neighborhood.' Also: This guy wants rental units which means a Loyola U slum as the only people who will afford them will be students.
Two things are damaging South of Pratt: The influx of LU students who are slobs and bad neighbors, and the density of the buildings. A development on the corner -- at least proposed by that owner -- would allow for both.
By the way, North Coast: That meeting was not an "official" block club meeting. It was a word-of-mouth meeting held at the PACT club president's house. I only heard it from a neighbor. Glad I did.
I have always said you cannot base a successful neighborhood on college students, and even the famous urbanist Jane Jacobs noted that college campuses are a frequent cause of blight in the surrounding area- people need to realise that Loyola's presence in the community is a very mixed blessing at best, and that massive numbers of rentals occupied by transient tenants (students) who tend to be sloppy and noisy probably was a major factor in the blighting of this area from the 70s forward.
College kids are not only sloppy and bad neighbors, they are transient and make for a very unstable building or neighborhood. Also they vote, and when they do, they tend to be easily hoodwinked by demagogues touting the commie-socialist "progressive" line.
Anything that attracts stable, permanent residents who care about the neighborhood is good, but we sure as hell don't need more transient residents.
Don't mean to be a naysayer, just practical. Some things to consider:
1) Whoever does anything with this property will probably expect to make a return from it. This makes a multi-use arts center unlikely. What is more typical is artist pioneers looking for really cheap "undiscovered" space for entrepreneurial activity. I don't think this property offers that opportunity.
2) Parking. This isn't going away.
3) There is a very similar project already in progress on Morse. Does this neighborhood have the critical mass to support two such projects at this time? I would be surprised if real market research supported this.
For many reasons, I think we can anticipate that most of the interest may come from potential buyers targeting the Loyola student population.
I'm afraid you're right, Rebecca.
It's just that I profoundly miss the really cohesive, closely knit art and theatre communities this city had until the late nineties. The Wicker Park art community was an unbelievably warm place really receptive to emergent artists and of every kind of art in its nascent days, and I remember what an equally vital theatre scene Lakeview had. Now these communities are hopelessly fragmented and the energy and vitality is gone.
I thought Pilson might take off, but the rents ratcheted up there so steeply in the early 90s, while the nabe was still just forming, that the artists had to leave, and it became an ordinary nabe plagued with crime and social problems instead.
It's a pipe dream, I suppose, but I was hoping that an art scene might form up here. This nabe has 20X the visual appeal of either Pilson or Wicker Park to begin with . But the trouble with THAT is that the minute a visible art community forms, the moneyed Hippoissie invades in force, driving prices into the stratosphere. Everything goes way too high way too fast, in advance of the arrival of decent services. Then, when they discover another hip, cheap nabe, they all leave, and the neighborhood is just as unliveable and underserviced as it was before, but the people who made it interesting are gone and can't afford to come back.
So maybe we shouldn't hope for it, but a girl can dream.
A great arts scene in north Rogers Park and/or south Evanston would be wonderful ... Oh, to have artists instead of gangsters, playbills instead of trash, bohemian cafes instead of pawn shops!
its cool
well i hope someone buys it
and fixes up the village north,
craig doesnt this news deserve its own entry, i guess this serves it okay, but update the title
then,
yeah that starbucks is hilarious
how many starbucks have glass brick for christs sake
that landlord is arsehole, who is just bleeding the building dry
and then demands top dollar despite
as was previously mentioned
NEglect to the nth degree
ne plus utra neglect.
jeffo, talk about bleeding the building to death and getting top dollar for it, have you noticed the new condos being developed at 1200 W Pratt?
The guy at Sam's liquors, on the ground floor of that place, told me the building, which was an absolute slum, sold for $5MM. And I mean the place was run completely into the ground. Seems I was calling 911 on that place every other night because of noisy fights, and there were broken liquor bottles and other rot allover the parkway in front every weekend morning.
Now they're redoing them into laughably small, overpriced condos. Cute,but ridiculously small. The developer managed to pack a two bed two bath into the space that was formerly a smallish one bed. Two of the tiniest closets you've ever seen.
I didn't know you could score $5MM for a place that is a shell that needs gutting. But that was 2 years ago. I wonder if you could now.
I'd like to applaud Village Theatre for being involved and taking action to keep the area around the theatre looking nice. I LOVE the green bike racks! They are much more cheerful than tired old black. Kudos Village Theatre!
Somebody wants to buy the movie theater? I hope this doesn't mean it'll close, like the Village down by Sandburg Village did recently. The manager of the theater is a nice lady who has clamped down on a lot of bad behavior that used to take place inside all the time.
As for the bike racks, purple would have been a better color.
Thank Karen Hoover for making the Village North nicer. It's been so much nicer since she's been managing it.
Yes, Karen deserves most of the credit for making the Village Theatre much nicer.
Their parkway used to look horrible- filled with weeds and trash.
I'm grateful for the new look and I'm beginning to like the cheerful color.
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