How to deaden a block

Build a data storage center!

10/28/2009 10:00 PM


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Chicago’s a fine place to store data. We have few hurricanes here, not so many earthquakes and tornados. There is a flood every now and then, but it is usually small and we manage. Sinkholes and rocket attacks are rare.

But that doesn’t mean McHugh Construction has picked a winning site — the southwest corner of Indiana and Cermak — to build a new data center that would store medical records and other personal information.

Far from it, in fact.

The parcel is adjacent to McCormick Place. The massive convention center is an absolutely crucial economic anchor for Chicago.

Each year, thousands upon thousands of conventioneers scramble down to McCormick Place for conferences and symposiums. Increasingly, they’ll be staying in neighborhood hotels, some of which are stalled by the recession but presumably will rise as the economic picture brightens

Those out-of-towners need things to do and places where they can eat and drink, hang out and perhaps soak up a bit of local culture.

They need places where the city can collect tax revenue from their fat wallets and sleek credit cards — beside Cermak Road mainstays like the Velvet Lounge and Chef Luciano’s one-of-a-kind restaurant, both Chicago Journal favorites.

Not possible in a data storage center.

Not much is possible there besides the whirring of generators.

The building will deaden the block. It will do nothing to inspire people to walk along Cermak, a stretch the city envisions — in a planning document passed just this past August — as a signature stretch.

We note from browsing McHugh’s Web site that the firm has received contracts from the city’s Department of Transportation, the CTA and Public Building Commission.

Maybe it’s time for Mayor Daley to intervene, and tell the firm this parcel isn’t the right one for a data storage center. If press accounts are to be believed, the mayor excels at this — getting private corporations to bend to his will.

Look, it’s not that we’re against McHugh building a data storage center. The pitch is simply the wrong one for an area of the Near South Side that’s destined for something better.


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By A from Motor Row
Posted: 10/30/2009 12:27 PM

2nd this opinion -- Boring design & EVERYONE was hoping that this space was going to be used for something of an entertainment purpose : GameWorks, Dave & Busters, High-end modern hotel, etc.. I know the buildings on S. Michigan, just south of Cermack will soon be high-end restaurant / roofdeck bars, but this site really should be used as an entrance way from McCormick -Motor Row-ChinaTown pathway. Building would need 24/7 security so McHugh should invest the streetscape.