Rahm Tries To Buy Off Friends Of The Parks With, Obvi, Parks
By Mae Rice in News on Jun 10, 2016 3:56PM
Designs for the Lucas Museum (Lucas Museum of Narrative Art)
Mayor Rahm Emanuel—along with Star Wars creator George Lucas, his wife and like every museum director in Chicago—wants to just start building the Lucas Museum already. This requires getting community organization Friends of the Parks on board with the project, and Rahm has a new plan to do just that, the Sun-Times reports. He's allegedly proposing a trade: They support the Lucas Museum, and he offers support for copious new parks —specifically, FOTP's ambitious Last Four Miles plan, first floated in 2009.
On Thursday, the Sun-Times reported that FOTP was divided on whether to take the deal; Friday, the Sun-Times' Michael Sneed reported that FOTP has voted to move forward on Lucas Museum negotiations. But Friends of the Parks Board President Lauren Moltz and Executive Director Juanita Irizarry denied these claims in a statement to Chicagoist Friday morning:
“Contrary to recent reports, our board remains fully united on the preservation of our lakefront and ensuring that the public trust doctrine is not ignored. We do believe that the Lucas Museum has a place in Chicago for all to enjoy, but not at the expense of one our most precious public resources. We have always said we were open to discussions. Anything else you hear is rumor and speculation. We are not dropping the lawsuit.”
Some background on the Last Four Miles project: the effort would restore public access to four miles of lakefront that are currently reserved for private use, according to FOTP's website on the project. In their words:
These privately-controlled gaps in the city’s chain of lakefront parks deprive several city neighborhoods of convenient access to the lake while functioning as barriers to the completion of a bike and pedestrian trail that would span the entire shoreline from Chicago’s northern to southern city limits.
The plan would also add two miles of park on the far north and far south ends of the lakefront. This would have cost between $350 and $450 million in 2009, according to FOTP estimates. It would cost even more now, the Sun-Times reports, and between negotiating public use with private land owners, environmental assessments and construction, it could take 20 years to complete.
Rahm's support is no small thing, though. The gigantic endeavor is much more likely to move forward with his support than without it. (You can say a lot about Rahm, but he can sure ram through some park plans.)
This deal is just the latest in the borderline-eternal saga of the Lucas Museum, which has lasted more than two years now. Rahm really wants the museum—the kabillion-dollar silver blob rendered above—in Chicago. Friends of the Parks, a park-loving community organization, has continually blocked the project, though, with lawsuits and claims that the proposed museum site, currently a lakefront parking lot, could someday become a public park and therefore should never be built on.