Demolition of South Loop Storage (1601 S. Federal) Begins

Looks like the demolition of South Loop Storage is underway judging by the picture a reader sent:

As a reminder back in February, we had a post on the subject.  At the time, there was a rumor that CVS was going to be the tenant (which seemed to be accurate according to some of the comments in the post).

Anyone have any new info?

(Hat tip:  EQ!)

Chicago Kernel Closes at 511 S. State

A reader writes:

Saw this in window.

We actually never stepped foot into this place when it opened in 2013 and frankly were uncertain if there was a market in the Sloop for popcorn (outside of Garrett's potentially).  Anyway, it seems like this building is ripe for restaurants given the amount of students in the neighborhood and area.

Hopefully something better pops up!

(Hat tip: CD!)

PDNA Planning Beer and Cider Festival for August

Looks like a new (and fun) event is being planned for August (DNAinfo):

The South Loop, a neighborhood teeming with new breweries, has a new beer festival on tap.  

The South Loop Beer and Cider Festival will debut Aug. 6 at Chicago Women's Park & Gardens, 1801 S. Indiana Ave. Many details are still being worked out, but about 40 breweries are expected to pour samples, said Tina Feldstein of the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance.  

The festival is the latest addition to the South Loop, where brewers including Vice District, Motor Row, and Baderbrau have popped up in recent years.

This one sounds like it could be a good time!

(Hat tip:  JB!)

Jahn High-Rise at 1000 S. Michigan Gets Green Light from Planning Commission

In case you missed this last week, looks like this high-profile high-rise is pretty close to moving forward (via Curbed Chicago):

The Helmut Jahn designed 73-story tower proposed for 1000 South Michigan is one step closer to construction after approval from the Chicago Plan Commission yesterday. The proposal by New York-based JK Equities and Time Equities is essentially the same concept that was presented to neighbors in a community meeting at the end of February, featuring 506 units split between rental apartments in the lower floors and for-sale condominiums in the upper floors of the tower. The building design begins with a rectilinear footprint at ground level, but flairs outward as it rises, eventually taking on a more trapezoidal form towards the top, which features a private outdoor amenity deck for the future condo dwellers. 

The planned development boundary covers not only the present surface parking lot at 1000 South Michigan Avenue, but also the neighboring eight-story building at 1006 South Michigan. It is over this neighboring building that the tower extends outward, similar to an earlier Jahn-designed project at 600 North Fairbanks in Streeterville. In doing so, the development team is making more space available to sell on the higher-priced upper floors while crafting a unique shape for the building. The tower will anchor the southern end of the Historic Michigan Avenue Boulevard District, a landmark district protecting the historic streetwall of facades extending northward from this block towards Randolph Street. While the site is empty and does not presently contribute to the streetwall, the location required negotiations with the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and ultimately resulted in the shortening of the tower's height from an initial 1030 feet to a current proposal topping out at 832 feet.

It's a pretty detailed post by Curbed and frankly gets into very granular development reporting.  But it does provide with some good info at the bottom regarding retail and construction start date:

The building will feature 2,700 square feet of ground floor commercial space and will have 13,000 square feet of green roof. A sales center is expected to open by this summer in the neighboring building at 1006 South Michigan while construction is planned to begin in 2017.

"The Future of the Fourth Ward" Event Happening Tonight

4th Ward Alderman Burns recently resigned.  While the 4th Ward encompasses more than the Sloop, figured it might be interesting for Sloopsters to hear about the event below.

A reader writes:

Hi! I am attaching a flyer to this email about an event that will be of interest to your readers in the Fourth Ward - which now extends as far north as Jackson. The alderman of the ward resigned, and although there is an interim alderman who was appointed by the mayor, a bunch of residents are getting together to talk about what the priorities for the ward should be. We are having a series of ongoing planning meetings, and the next one is this Monday, April 25, at Room 43, 1043 E. 43rd St., 7-9 p.m.

(Hat tip:  GP!)

#ShotsAroundTheSloop: 3 Wolves

(Hat tip: TS!)

Wabash Arts Corridor Launching New Series Called "Big Walls"

If you read this here blog, you know we love the Wabash Arts Corridor.  Well they're upping their game again and are hosting a new two week long event dubbed "Big Walls":

Columbia College Chicago and WAC proudly announce a new initiative that will transform Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood into a bustling hub for public art. 

Starting May 1-13th, WAC Big Walls has partnered with local galleries and sponsors to bring twenty local and internationally renowned street artists to the corridor to create large-scale mural installations. 

During the two weeks, Big Walls will hold a celebration of street art, showcasing the diversity of artistic styles emerging in this vibrant art form. There will be guided tours and audiences will experience the creative process live as street artists revamp and reimagine the walls of Chicago’s Wabash Arts Corridor neighborhood.

Should be fun.

NFL Draft Street Closures Underway

The NFL Draft festivities are about a week away, but that isn't stopping some of the inconveniences associated with it from happening.  Street closures are already underway as they prep for the big event (via ChicagoTribune):

• Michigan Avenue from Jackson to Balbo will close Thursday, April 28 and Friday, April 29 from 3 to 8 p.m. 
• Columbus from Jackson to Balbo will close Thursday, April 21 from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. on Friday, April 22, and again from 8 p.m. on Friday, April 22 through Monday, May 2. 
• Congress from Michigan to Columbus will be closed to traffic and pedestrians Friday, April 22 through Monday, May 2. 
• Congress from Wabash to Michigan will close from 3 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 28, as well as at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 29, and should reopen later than evening.

Beware!

Old St. Mary's New Parish Center to Open May 6th

Old St. Mary's New Parish Ground Breaking Ceremony

A reader writes:

Just wanted to alert you that Old St. Mary’s new parish center is open to the community starting May 6 with a dedication.

The press release we received had some additional info we found interesting:

The Church was founded in 1833 and in 2002 the parish community proudly dedicated their new church on South Michigan Avenue. But the parish wasn’t done yet. It became clear that there would be a need for an educational ministry as the demand for a quality Catholic education in the South Loop and Loop as a whole was strong. Today, there is a growing group of young families in the parish and within the community that are committed to living in the city who have personally experienced or know the value of Catholic education and want to give this experience to their children.  

The Church’s journey timeline includes the following milestones: 

• May 6, 2016 marks the completion of the vision for the Church: the dedication and formal opening of the Parish Center. The 17,000 square foot Parish Center addresses the needs of the growing parish including a space for workshops, pastoral meetings and parish committee meetings as well as a gymnasium to serve the school for athletic programs and performing arts. 

• In 2004 Old St. Mary’s School opened its doors to its first preschool class of 18 children – the “new” school was housed in a 100-year-old revamped furniture warehouse adjacent to the parish offices. 

• In 2011, a brand-new Old St. Mary’s School opened with more than 200 students -- now more than double that are enrolled in preschool through 8 th grade. 

The dedication is open to the public and begins at 2:00 p.m. Central on Friday, May 6, 2016 at 1500 South Michigan Avenue.

Also for some additional background we posted on this topic back in May of 2015.

(Hat tip: AB!)

Tribune and DNAinfo Look at Homelessness in Large Vacant Lots in the South Loop

Two local news sites had separate pieces taking a look at the homeless encampments in Chicago.

Some of the large swaths of lands in the South Loop provide ideal areas (via ChicagoTribune):

A diverse community lives in the South Loop — with riverfront property just blocks from glitzy shopping districts. The residents know their neighbors, and they look out for one another.

This might sound like an idyllic place to live. But I am describing a homeless encampment, one of several where scores of people survive in tents, under bridges, in makeshift shacks and in concrete pipes, even in the dead of winter. Where violence, theft, drug abuse and disease are also a part of daily life.

For six months photojournalist Lloyd DeGrane and I have visited with the residents of these encampments in a swath of open land south of Roosevelt Road and on the banks of the Chicago River farther north, as well as below highway underpasses in the Pilsen neighborhood and under viaducts on the North Side lakefront.

Our work is part of the Social Justice News Nexus (www.sjnnchicago.org) at the Medill journalism school at Northwestern University, a fellowship program for in-depth reporting on a suite of topics — drug policy and treatment, mental health and housing — that intersect in the homeless encampments of Chicago.

The Tribune piece includes 10 photos with interesting stories about some of the people who reside in the huge vacant piece of land south of Roosevelt and east of the Chicago River:

Kent of Chinatown

Kent, seen here on Nov. 21, 2015, says he has lived in the fields north of Chinatown for 18 years. He cooks over a fire, sings Chinese ballads with homeless Mexican men and heads into Chinatown to go to church or the library. He knows everyone in these encampments north of 18th Street and east of the Chicago River. Many consider him a father figure.

DNAinfo is the other site who had an article about the area.  Although it isn't as altruistic as the Tribune article, it does provide a quick look at this shifting dynamic as more developments come to the Sloop (via DNAinfo):

A big development has displaced Downtown's "tent city," but some of the homeless living there have moved just south to a tract of land once owned by disgraced developer Tony Rezko.  

A handful of tents have sprouted this month at the riverfront site just south of Roosevelt Road after a developer cleared out an old encampment near the Old Main Post Office. The new, smaller tent city is farther away from the Loop than the old one, but also quieter, residents say.

(Hat tip:  ND & KD!)

Rahm Proposes Tearing Down McCormick Lakeside Building and Replacing with Lucas Museum

A bold move (via ChicagoTribune):

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is making a last-ditch push to keep George Lucas' museum in Chicago, a plan that relies on tearing down McCormick Place's aging lakefront convention hall but risks running into the same legal hurdles that allowed park preservationists to tie up the mayor's first attempt.  

The plan, which was coming into focus Friday, has the backing of the Star Wars creator, who wants to build a museum along the city's picturesque Lake Michigan shoreline showcasing his art and film collection. Left unclear by the Emanuel administration is how the city would replace the lost convention center space, how much that would cost and who would pay for it.

There are a lot of questions that this poses, but as a concept we REALLY like this idea.  Should be interesting to see if this helps quell the critics.

#ShotsAroundTheSloop: Keep Havin a Good Day - Take 10

Keep Havin a Good Day Tracker:
Take 1
Take 2
Take 3
Take 4
Take 5 
Take 6
Take 7
Take 8
Take 9

(Hat tip:  SE!)

Baderbräu Brewery Planning on Memorial Day Weekend Opening

Image via DNAinfo

Beer drinkers get excited (via DNAinfo):

Baderbräu Brewery is returning to Chicago, and just in time for summer. 

Te once defunct brewer will open its new South Loop tap room next month, with plans for a grand opening "block party" May 29, its owners told neighbors last week. 

The opening will culminate a long, strange trip back to Chicago for Baderbräu, whose maker went bankrupt in 1997 and whose pilsner had previously been out of production for years. The new brewery and tap room coming to 2515 S. Wabash Ave. had been expected to open last year before getting caught in delays.

While some may debate whether this is in the Sloop or not, we're giving them the benefit of the doubt (mostly because we like beer). Baderbräu joins Motor Row Brewing (2337 S. Michigan) and Vice District Brewing (1454 S. Michigan).

Looking forward to trying them out!

(Hat tip:  A!)

Armand Pizza Opening at Old City Tavern Space on South Michigan

A reader writes:

Looks like Armand Pizza opening in old City Tavern spot.

We've never heard of this place but according to their website they have a decent amount of places:

In 1956 childhood friends Michael Caringella and Armand Christopher purchased the Victory Tap in Elmwood Park. Mike worked at his families butcher shop on Taylor Street and Armand was a successful artist.  

 They incorporated both of these things into their new venture. Mike bringing his experience and family recipes into the kitchen where he created many of the famous items on Armand’s menu and Armand exhibiting his original artwork in the main dining room.  

 The name of the establishment was decided by a coin toss, the winner was Mike and he decided to name the place Armand’s Victory Tap. 

 The concept flourished selling thousands of Mike’s signature thin crust pizzas weekly. Customers could watch from Grand Avenue as the Pizza’s were hand tossed and put into one of the only giant revolving pizza ovens in Chicago.  

 Over the years Armand’s Victory Tap became Armand’s Pizzeria and Mike and his family sold millions of pizzas as well as other signature items such as Stuffed Artichokes, Baked Clams and Antipasto Salad. Armand’s Pizzeria continues to grow and is expanding throughout Chicago and suburbs.

Sounds interesting and like a good addition to the neighborhood.  Had anyone had Armand's?  Good?

(Hat tip:  LE!)