Thursday, September 25, 2008

Condemn hospital: alderman

Sun-Times:
Chicago should condemn the Michael Reese Hospital campus to make way for a $1.1 billion Olympic Village and get around a property owner refusing to assume the rising cost of demolition and environmental cleanup, the local alderman said Wednesday.

"Condemn the property. Use the city's power of eminent domain. We should pursue the property with whatever means are at our disposal. ... I'm going to encourage the city to do that," said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), whose ward includes the Michael Reese site.

Daley won't pay cleanup tab for Reese site Olympic Village site in limbo Tell us: Should Michael Reese Hospital be condemned? Special section: Chicago 2016

"It'll take us longer to acquire the property. But we'll get it, and there'll be plenty of time to develop the site for the Olympics."

One day after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that City Hall had broken off talks with Medline Industries, owner of the Reese site, Mayor Daley held out hope of breaking the stalemate. In fact, he insisted the city was "still negotiating" with Medline.
Assuming Chicago gets the Summer Olympics in 2016, they'll have to utilize an alternate site for the Olympic Village.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I'm surprised to hear this coming from my alderman. I'm still not sure how I feel about the olympics, but this isn't a good early sign of what she might do if we're the chosen city...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good Morning 6th Ward :)

    Alderman Preckwinkle understands the importance to both make way for a new development in this space, in addition ensuring that tax payers don't pay for the cleanup.

    You can read more about this and other Chicago 2016 topics here:
    http://www.chicago2016channel.com

    ReplyDelete

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