Navy Pier. More more more. How do you like it?

By Roland Lara on Jan 20, 2006 4:06PM

We tipped you off a little while ago to the goings-on at Navy Pier. We now have more details on the revamp, and more on the inevitable and totally valid crankiness of local residents.

First, we can now confirm that the proposal includes a larger Ferris wheel “closer to the size of the original built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition[.]” Yikes. Wikipedia’s telling us that that Ferris wheel could carry 2,160 people at a time. That’s a lot of tourists in the air at one time. That’s a lot of Alan Jackson fans.

Second, warm up your Simpsons quotes, because they’re also going to build a monorail that will run the length of the pier. (“Worst. Pier. Ever.”)

Third, and what’s got everyone’s attention, is the proposed construction of two floating parking lots. On the one hand you have residents who say that the pier doesn’t need more parking. "There are 9 million people that go to Navy Pier annually, and there are 1,700 parking spaces. That suggests to me that parking has not been a deterrent," said Erma Tranter, president of Friends of the Parks. On the other hand, according to Pier officials, the current situation leads to huge backups when people drive through downtown to the pier, then back into the city when they can't find parking.

What Chicagoist finds most offensive about the plan, though, is that the two floating parking lots “would be built to resemble an aircraft carrier and a steamship, part of designer Forrec Ltd.'s desire to tie today's Navy Pier to its nautical past.”

Just when you think that Navy Pier can’t get more craptacular, they go and kitsch something else up. More of a nautical theme? jesus. What’s next? Are they going to have vendors selling breadfruit so as to combat outbreaks of scurvy from the tourists’ diet of only pretzels and churros?

Maybe at the new 80,000-square-foot water park monstrosity they could have kids walk the plank.

Where will the madness end?