A plan proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel would charge downtown motorists a $2-a-day "congestion fee" to help fund a new CTA Green Line station near McCormick Place and establish express bus lanes downtown. more ›

On Friday, we took on Da Mare's impact on the city's music and arts - today, it's time to turn to restaurants. How has the mayor's tenure affected the city's food scene? As with most of the mayor's legacy, it's a mixed bag: genuine improvements and admirable goals mixed with inefficiency, graft and lost opportunities. more ›

The DuPage County Board approved by a 13-5 vote to allow a Muslim group to build a community center in unincorporated Willowbrook. It's not just a mosque, although the 600-person prayer room planned for the community center seems to be driving the headline writers. There are also plans for a school and a recreational center on the grounds of an abandoned house on 91st Street in Willowbrook. more ›

Michigan developer Village Green Companies got approval (finally) from the Chicago Community Development Commission for $34 million in TIF funding for a Loop apartment development in the beleaguered former Steuben Club Building. That's more than four times the funding initially approved in 2006, when the project was estimated to cost $79 million. Since then the project cost has escalated to $139 million. more ›

The Carson Pirie Scott building downtown (AKA the Sullivan Center) gets its first tenant: Flat Top Grill. The venerable make-you-own-stir-fry chain is set to open to the public on September 21. more ›

A city commission recommended Chicago's Loop area receive $15.5 billion for building developments and transportation improvements by 2020, Chi-Town Daily News reports. Area residents protest, saying such a plan would negatively affect residents' "quality of life" by increasing the population and straining resources in the area, including parking. One resident who spoke against the plan at the Saturday afternoon meeting said that besides changing the character of the South Loop, the money designated for the plan would be better spent on lower-income areas in the city. more ›

Crain's Chicago Business is reporting that Michigan developer Villiage Green Companies is looking to the City of Chicago to help finance conversion of a 45 story vintage office building into apartments, after private financing fell through.

The failed financing is the latest trial for the ramshackle Gothic Revival office tower, which is well-known for its crumbling terra cotta facade and has made two trips to Bankruptcy Court this decade. Village Green, which wants to convert the building into 313 apartments, is pushing ahead despite the bad economy, betting that the downtown rental market will pull out of its slump by the time the project, called Randolph Tower City Apartments, is finished. more ›

The lakefront at Chicago that's open to the public stretches for 26 miles. But one group - Friends of the Park - wants to see that stretched just a bit further, citing Daniel Burnham: “The Lakefront by right belongs to the people - not a foot of its shores should be appropriated to the exclusion of the people." The group unveiled a plan this morning that would see the four miles still considered private property developed and opened up to the general public. The plan is called The Last Four Miles and features a detailed plan on how the still-private areas of lakefront would be developed. The downside? A hefty price tag: the group estimates the work would cost somewhere between $350 million and $450 million. And, regardless of the cost, not everyone is on board with the plan. Mike Truppa, a spokesman for Friends of the Parks, told the Sun-Times, “There’s some dissent. There’s a small group of homeowners in high-rise condos who use the lakefront as their private beaches...mainly in Rogers Park and Edgewater." If completed, the lakefront paths would stretch from the Illinois/Indiana border to the south all the way to Evanston on the north. The Tribune also has a detailed run-down of some of the proposed development plans. more ›

We've talked before about the proposed new development at Addison and Clark. And now, in an effort to win key government and community backing for the project, the developers have decided to keep the project a bit shorter than planned. They've redesigned the top portion of the project so that the top floors go no higher than the neighborhood's centerpiece: Wrigley Field. more ›

Rogers Park is one of the city's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods; organizing an "Alphabet of Nations" tour of its restaurants seems eminently feasible. From 4-8 p.m. Sunday, that's exactly what's going to happen. more ›

Today a Chicago institution closes. The Maurice Lennell cookie outlet in Norridge will be selling its final pinwheels, butter cookies and other tooth-cracking monstrosities as the land on which the outlet resides is slated to become a Costco. Lennell is said to be sourcing its production to overseas companies. more ›