The West Edgewater Park will provide both significant economic and quality of life advantages to our community, making the park the most viable solution for the redevelopment of the EMC property.
Alderperson Andre Vasquez has announced the groundbreaking for the WEAR neighborhood park will be held this Friday, November 17th, at 3:30 pm!!!
Located just east of Rosehill Cemetery at 1623 W. Edgewater in the WEAR neighborhood the park (currently designated as Park 599) will provide a new green space for Chicago’s residents (its visitors) and its wildlife. According to the Chicago Park District flyer on the 40th Ward Alderperson’s Facebook Page the park improvements will include “storm-water utilities, installation of a drinking fountain and associated utilities, installation of a passive greenspace including benches, open lawn, and landscape.”
Congratulations to all who have worked on this project!
Should there are any additional changes to the groundbreaking date and time they might be posted here.
At the Zoom community meeting held on the 13th of May Alderman Vasquez brought together representatives from his office, representatives from the Chicago Park District, and community members from the WEAR association and other neighborhood associations to discuss the status of the West Edgewater neighborhood park.
With the official designation of Park 599 from the Chicago Park District the as yet to be named neighborhood park in the West Edgewater/Andersonville community is now finally much closer to becoming a reality some 20 years after the closing of the Edgewater Medical Center.
The future park occupies approximately 33% of the original Edgewater Hospital site and is located just west of Anderson Point, a adaptive reuse luxury apartment complex located in the former Edgewater Hospital buildings along 5700 N Ashland Ave.
Sarah White, Park 599’s project manager, updated the attendees on the project’s status and a shared 2 new concepts for the design of Park 599 (see images below). The 3 main points I took from her presentation are as follows: (1) the city is working on the acquisition of the site, (2) the site design and approvals will require about 6 months (project is presently in schematic design), and, (3) once approved the “bidding, permitting, and construction” could be completed in 6-12 months.
Following her presentation the meeting was opened up for comments, questions, and discussion. There were quite a few that Alderman Vasquez, members of his staff, and park district representatives took turns fielding. The topics ranged from such matters as local infrastructure around the park, park cost, park programing, park naming, and community input and participation. For a full account of the presentation and the questions and discussions that followed, view the recording of the meeting at the link https://fb.watch/5IReXbwTNz/.
That said in summary I would say the questions and discussion indicate there remains a strong desire in the community for the opportunity to participate in the designing and programing of the park and there also remains a strong desire in the community for the park to include a playground area and a dog friendly area.
To provide feedback on the current design and programing email Sarah White at cpdpark599@gmail.com. I would also suggest CCing the email to the 40th Ward Office at info@40thward.org. Feedback should be sent before the 1st of June (my apologies for the delay in posting this update).
WEAR is hosting a Zoom discussion with Ald. Andre Vasquez and representatives from the Chicago Park District to discuss the West Edgewater neighborhood park (Park 599) tomorrow evening, May 13th, 2021 at 6 pm. Acording to WEAR board member Ruthie Williams the event will be “an opportunity to learn about the proposed timeline and talk through two preliminary concepts for the park” and to collect community feedback.
Back on December 12th of 2018 an ordinance, O2018-9260, was introduced in the City of Chicago Council Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards. Its title is Zoning Reclassification Map No. 13-I at 5700 N Ashland Ave – App No. 19879. The body of O2018-9260 contains a considerable amount of information about MCZ Edgewater, LLC’s redevelopment plans for the Edgewater Medical Center site located at 5700 N Ashland Ave. The redevelopment is controlled by the “requirements, obligations, and conditions” set forth in the City of Chicago’s Planned Development No. 1312. For more information about the planned development follow this link and download the PDF, O2018-9260.pdf, located on the corresponding webpage.
MCZ Development has updated 3 of the project’s color renderings. They are available at this link.
Here is a link to a February 1st, 2019 article in The Real Deal real estate publication about a $27M loan MCZ Development secured in order to fund the project.
Here is a link to the MCZ Development Facebook Page.
Finally, here is a link to what I assume must be drone video of the site from last year.
According to an announcement Alderman Patrick O’Connor posted in his Facebook Page on March 19th, 2019, the current developer of the former Edgewater Medical Center, MCZ Development, “is seeking a Planned Development amendment.” According to the alderman the amendment would increase the project’s dwelling units from 141 to 155 and decrease its parking spaces from 78 to 74.
The community will have an opportunity to learn more about the proposed amendment at a public meeting at St. Gregory’s, 1609 W. Gregory St., on Thursday, April 4, at 7:00 p.m. At the meeting, where the community may ask questions about the proposed amendment and the project in general, the alderman states there should be representatives of MCZ and various city departments.
To read the specific text Alderman O’Connor posted follow this link.
On January 10th, 2018 Alderman O’Connor posted a detailed update to the section of his website where he shares information about the Edgewater Medical Center redevelopment project with the community. Follow the link for more details.
Progress this summer with the demolition of the Edgewater Medical Center buildings currently occupying the future home of the Andersonville/West Edgewater neighborhood park has been erratic.
In a recent email to constituents Alderman O’Connor (40th Ward) announced there will be a community meeting on the status of the project. According to him the project developer, MCZ Development, will brief the community on its fully approved remediation plan and take questions. In addition, according to Alderman O’Connor, “MCZ will be joined by their environmental contractors [Alessio and Sons and EPS Environmental] to make sure that there is a detailed understanding of the process moving forward.”
If you wish to read Alderman O’Connor’s email to the community see the three JPEGs below or click on this link, where there is also additional information about the project.
Finally the community meeting will be held at 7:30 PM on Thursday, July 10th, at the Rogers Park Montessori School, located at 1800 W Balmoral Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60640.
UPDATE :: August 11, 2017 :: Here is a link to Linze Rice‘s DNAinfo article on the meeting.
On February 19th, Alderman O’Connor announced on his website “significant progress with respect to the Edgewater Medical Center Redevelopment”. Here is the link — http://www.aldermanoconnor.com/featured-news/edgewater-medical-center/ (you need to scroll down the page in order to read the Feb. 19th announcement since Alderman O’Connor has made two additional announcements regarding EMC redevelopment since Feb. 19th: TIF expenses; summary of WEAR March 31st community forum).
On March 31st, West Edgewater Area Residents (WEAR) hosted a forum at the Experimental Sound Studio. At the forum Todd Mullen of MCZ Development spoke about the current plans MCZ Development has for the redevelopment of the Edgewater Medical Center. Here is the link to The Experimental Sound Studio’s streaming of the evening — https://youtu.be/G5Ne0DwRhTA (one hour thirty minutes of unedited video).
DNAinfo’s Linze Rice (@linzerice) wrote this morning that our City has purchased EMC property from MCZ for a neighborhood park. Here is a link to the article, which contains a few more details.
Friends of West Edgewater Park 
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