Two successive community meetings on West Loop developments received very different reactions on Wednesday night.

Once again, irate neighbors expressed displeasure with a proposed 23-story office tower to be built by Old St. Pat’s on a parking lot across the street from the church at Adams and Des Plaines streets. Meanwhile, a once-controversial project to put a Japanese budget hotel across from Union Station at 320 S. Clinton St. received a warm response.

The development team behind the St. Pat’s office tower slightly tweaked the project, changing the building’s west-facing glass wall to a white square face, as opposed to horizontal lines that the project had sported earlier this year.

Neighbors generally agreed that the new face looked better, but that was the end of the agreement. Traffic patterns in and out of the building’s parking lot, light pollution and soundproofing were some of the gripes neighbors to the west raised, in addition to the mostly unspoken but implied issue that the building would simply block their views of the downtown cityscape.

Meanwhile, Toyoko Inn received a much better response from community members Wednesday than it had last year. This time, none of the community members raised concerns that the hotel’s room size or low rates (roughly $100 a night) might attract undesirable tenants, a point that had been belabored at its first community meeting.

Hosted by Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd), the alderman had very different responses to the two projects, saying he’d bless the Toyoko project at a plan commission meeting this month, but wanted to see at least three more community meetings between the St. Pat’s tower team and neighboring condo buildings.

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By Andrew M from West Loop
Posted: 11/17/2011 10:31 AM

The church owns this lot, and for years has been proposing a 6 story "faith center" in this location - including when buyers in nearby buildings bought. There has been no consultation between the church and the neighbors before the deal with the developer for this large building was announced. The neighbors are consistently disappointed with the amount of communication from the church. Surprising.

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By Tom.D from West Town
Posted: 11/14/2011 12:37 PM

Whatever the zoning for that lot was at the time that the various neighbors bought their properties in the area, that's what should be allowed to be built on the lot. If you bought in 2006 and the zoning for that lot would allow a 23-story office tower to be built on that lot, then you've got no grounds to complain. It's like buying a house near an active airport, and then complaining about jet noise. It's been clear for decades what size buildings get built in that area.

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By David from West Loop
Posted: 11/12/2011 8:08 AM

Those neighbors are never going to like the building because it's going to block their precious views. What possible noise pollution are they worried about? Traffic flows? They're going to have ticketing for the garage on the second floor to avoid traffic blockage in the street, and I'd say that the Sunday parking rules around the church present a HUGE hazard as it is right now. The diagonally parked cars and people in the street make it treacherous. This will help, not hurt, traffic!