Plan Would Bring Championship Public Golf Course to Chicago's South Side

[PCCraig]

I really wish they would just scrap the "Championship" course aspect. Would be great if they turned South Shore into a WP9 type facility and Jackson Park into something similar but slightly bigger, a par 65 type course. Would have to be possible to do a quality renovation to the courses for a relatively small amount of money.

[Paul OConnor]

From a  citizen FOIA request made by @jennytrew

" The Tiger Woods designed Golf Course expansion will cut down 2106 MORE trees in Jackson Park & SS Nature Sanctuary, on top of the original 865 trees (301 are now clear cut) from the original Obama Prez Center, per Bartlett tree survey and CDOT plans for the OPC."
Local residents not too happy. 

[SL_Solow]

Paul, what is your agenda and what is your source regarding the sentiments of residents?  Interested to know whether you have played Jackson Park, whether you have seen the plans and whether you have spent time with resident/resident groups.

[Paul OConnor]

https://southsideweekly.com/remembering-the-jackson-park-trees-a-photo-essay/

[MCirba]

Paul, what is your agenda and what is your source regarding the sentiments of residents?  Interested to know whether you have played Jackson Park, whether you have seen the plans and whether you have spent time with resident/resident groups.

Good questions, Shel...good questions.

[Steve Lang]

   I wonder what Olmsted would say, seeing his park design reach its grow-out potential and then be
, , what's the best word?  privately developed or revised or destroyed or ??

[corey miller]

As we continue to fight climate change we once again see how minority communities are once again targeted and disproportionally affected. 


 

[MCirba]

I'm calling bullshit here.

I don't recall a single person ever criticizing whatever development had to be done to create the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., W, or the development of any past of future trump properties.

NOW you guys believe in and are concerned about climate change?!?

C'mon.  Don't be so obvious.

[SL_Solow]

I will leave behind the Obama Center controversy except to note that the vast majority of the objectors were not members of the neighborhood.  As for the impact of the golf plan on the Olmstead plan, I note that there already exists 27 holes of golf (18 Jackson Park and 9 from the old South Shore CC now owned by the city) which have been there for more than 100 years. Thus the footprint will have no negative impact on the land plan.  Finally I note the cited article did not include any evidence of neighborhood issues speaking only of vague opposition.  This is not the place for a grand exposition but major community groups support the project and I have first hand knowledge of that support.
[size=78%] [/size]

[corey miller]

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/24/us/reagan-library-site-choice-stirs-opposition-in-palo-alto.html

And where again is the Reagan Library?


I think it a great idea that President Obama put his Library in the neighborhood he lives in.  I fully support that, but I have concerns about why a revamped golf course is needed especially one that seems to have little regard for the impact of all the tree removal.


Most major cities have a lack of trees and I don't see why even more should be cut down for golf.

[SL_Solow]

Corey,  Have you been on the course?  Are you familiar with the number of parks and trees there are in Chicago?  Have you seen the proposal?  Just curious. 

[Kalen Braley]

I agree with the hypocrisy here in using the Climate Change card on this.  Globally, 10-15 million trees are cut down every day....and this is talking about a couple thousand in a one off event.


The absurdity...

[corey miller]

I need to know how many trees there are in public parks in Chicago to have an opinion on felling trees needlessly for golf in a park in a minority community? 


I suspect there are many more trees per capita in parks in wealthy white neighborhoods than in this community. 


I think the carbon footprint of members of this board chasing top 100 golf is more an absurdity than caring about a few thousand beautiful trees.

[SL_Solow]

Corey,  So its clear that you have no knowledge relating to this issue.  I suspect that you haven't seen the plan so that you don't know its impact on the environment.  You don't know about the distribution of parkland in Chicago nor anything about tree lined boulevards.  Here is a hint, the parks were created at a time when the demographics were very different. Before you jump to conclusions, those who have been on the site are aware of my liberal bona fides which go back more than 50 years.  I don't know whether this project will get done.  What I do know is that is a part of an overall program to revitalize the economy in a part of the city that was thriving when I was much younger.  It has the support of community organizations both connected to golf and not connected.  No one involved wants to hurt the environment as the project converts 27 existing holes to 18 holes with superior practice facilities and areas to be used by several charities including the First Tee and the CDGA Foundation.  So we shall see what develops.  But assumptions that this is outside golfers taking advantage of a minority neighborhood and harming the environment at the same time may be an interesting narrative but it is devoid of facts.  On top of that, nobody is going to make any real money.  The architect and other key players are working on a near pro bono basis, the money will be raised privately and the course will belong to the park district.

[Tim Leahy]

Isn't this similar to the Eastlake plan in Atlanta?
That seems to have worked out pretty well. If trees have to be removed to build a golf course that would also revitalize the community, do it. The developers can promise to plant a new tree for every tree they remove.

[Tim_Cronin]

A reminder that the Obama Center and the golf course redo are two separate projects that happen to be adjacent, though Barack Obama urged Tiger Woods to get involved in the golf project.


The Obama Center's latest cost, including estimates of early operation, is $830 million, up from $462 million. (Prices have a tendency to go up in Chicago.)


The latest cost of the Jackson Park-South Shore redo, which would take two courses totaling 27 holes and replace them with 18 holes, a better range, and a kid-friendly practice/learning area, is $60 million, up from the original $30 million.


The original breakdown was the private financiers needing to raise $24 million before the Chicago Park District would kick in $6 million. Then the price tag jumped to $60 million, the public needing to find $36 million, when Mike Kelly, then the boss of the CPD, told me infrastructure would have to be included in the cost. (Little of that infrastructure cost can be shared with the Obama Center, as it revolves around Lake Michigan lakeshore, an underpass to connect Jackson Park and South Shore, and other technical headaches. The Army Corps of Engineers would have to sign off on anything involving the lake.)


Kelly told me that at a news conference in January 2018.


What is the cost now, more than four years later? Leaving aside the elimination of a popular pair of courses, does the cost exceed the benefit?


Ancillary programs tied to the development could take place anyway – for instance, there has been a caddie program in the past, and there is one now. A fundraising project for the area could go into other community programs that would benefit the neighborhoods, including those immediately adjacent to the south boundary of Jackson Park and west boundary of South Shore that are among the most crime-ridden in Chicago.


Other CPD courses are being renovated – I believe Robert Black, sitting on the bones of the old Edgewater Golf Club on the north side, was the most recent to get an upgrade – and Jackson Park and South Shore certainly belong in that rotation.


That could be done for a lot less than $60 million. Do nine holes at a time and the other 18 could stay open throughout. And you wouldn't have to cut down any trees beyond those for opening up portions of the course.


FYI: Walking rates this week at Jackson Park are $29.36 weekdays and $32.11 on the weekend. For anybody, resident or not.


Tim Leahy, the significant difference between JP-SS and East Lake is the public-private difference. Tom Cousins owns/controls East Lake. The people own Jackson Park and South Shore.

[MCirba]

Trying to better understand the situation here.

How many of those here have played Jackson Park and/or South Shore Park with any regularity (say weekly, monthly, or even quarterly?) over the past five years?   Please also indicate your inclination whether favorable or opposed to the current plan and why.   Thanks.

[corey miller]

It is called "global climate change" for a reason....


Every micro-agression against the environment hurts us all. 




I lived in NYC for many years and know many people with great  liberal bonafides but when the rubber hits the road they still have an apartheid school system and gross environmental injustice between the different communities. 


I guess Chicago is different. Kudos.

[Paul OConnor]

[MCirba]

Paul,


I don't know you but would politely mention that this is a "discussion group" and that works so much better when people answer questions asked of them.

[Steve Lang]

    Now, now, let's put Chicago air quality in proper perspective, THE air quality issue in Chicago is ozone, i.e., they're in non-attainment status with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and have been since those standards were established under the Clean Air Act of 1970.   Things have certainly improved since 1970, but the "Environmental Justice" screening plots incorporating health and social factors as portrayed in Paul's post from the City of Chicago, literally cloud the reality that the air pollution is almost uniform across the subject area.  Cutting down those trees makes a very small if not insignificant negative impact on air quality. 


Let's eliminate those freeways and all the cars, now that'd do a job on things! 


One can take a look at EPA's Green Book at https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/map8hr_2015.html for reference views and listings on air quality.

[Ian Mackenzie]

This has happened beforte in Chicago, and somewjhat recently.


In the heart of downtown Chicago, just north of the Art Institute, there was an "open wound" of a commuter rail yard that was a blight on the otherwise fantastic presence of Grant Park.


Have any of you (non-Chicagoans) heard of Millennium Park? The Bean? The Frank Gehry-designed concert pavillion?


The city's wealthy families and corporate donors - all private capital - paid for over 50% of it. Taxpayer's paid the rest. ($450M total!)


https://millenniumparkfoundation.org/the-foundation/


https://www.choosechicago.com/articles/parks-outdoors/millennium-park-campus/


I donmt know about all these tree comments by some here. What I can tell you is that my street on the north side has just as many trees as most blocks on the south side. And Lincoln Park on the north side has a shit load of trees just as Jackson Park does on the south side.


Sadly, only a 9 holer is on the lake on the north side so the south side wins out there....;-)


FWIW, I have heard that this project will never happen. My neighbor told me that, the guy lives down the street...I think he's out of town now as he took a new job in Tokyo recently...

[Paul OConnor]

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/jackson-park-golf-course-expansion-trees-cut-down-petitions/
Oh, Mike Cirba, did you ask me a question?

[Paul OConnor]

This is a long read. 

Silencing, Urban Growth Machines, and the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2022.835674/full
"An OPC growth machine consisting of the Obama Foundation, the city mayor, the University of Chicago, and a coalition of local business and community organizations practices this simultaneity of offering their voice and undercutting alternative voices in adroit ways. Race, it is argued, is at the center of this systematic suppression. The OPC development provides an important example of how current redevelopment in cities across the global west currently proceeds."
All the arguments made in this paper apply equally to the proposed golf course. 

[PCCraig]

Paul -


Give it a rest. We get it.