Construction has kicked off on a new public plaza located at 2550 North Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square. Sitting directly across the street from the recently reconfigured and expanded Logan Square park and roundabout, the project has been in the works for multiple years and received City Council approval back in 2022.
Site plan of plaza via City of Chicago
When we last covered it back in 2022, it was part of two public spaces in development by the city, along with a new food truck plaza at 2420 North Sacramento Avenue, which has been partially completed. Since then, the Department of Transportation held two different community engagement open houses to take feedback on its design.
The roughly 14,000 square-foot lot has long sat vacant and is intersected by the CTA Blue Line tunnel towards the nearby station. The current plans have been simplified from their previous versions, but will still include large green areas for sitting, planters, tables and seating areas, along with a children’s play space and small performance area with a canopy.
Former view of plaza site via City of Chicago
The space will potentially be called the Logan Square Megamall Plaza, a nod to the former Discount Mega Mall that previously occupied the site from 1995 to 2017. The space will take around a year to complete, having started early groundwork this summer. Once completed, the plaza will complete a multi-year transformation of the public spaces around the square.
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Being that there is already a Logan Square circle right across the street, this is a waste of space.
The city is full of morons. They need to raise money to pay off this pension debt. The lot should have been sold off to a private developer to build a reasonably dense project here.
But NOOOOOOOOOOOO…… we don’t want “gentrification”. We don’t want those horrible people with jobs and careers moving here.
CTA would not allow a building on this property. End of discussion.
The complication here is that the subway under the site built in the 70s was not built to handle development above, which limits a large part of the wider portion of the site. Making this site not attractive to many developers. This also will make the parking lot along Linden more accessible.
I wish they had split off the southern half of the lot along Milwaukee, because that might have made it appealing by having the minimum depth for a double loaded corridor building.
Very naive commentary lol. CTA wouldn’t allow a building by their property. Also there isn’t a quota on open spaces allowed in a city. Lastly, you greatly misunderstand what gentrification is
@Tupper –
Then leave the city, run for office, or start publicly advocating for policy. Otherwise, quit complaining. You don’t live in or near Logan Circle, so your opinion is pretty irrelevant. But go ahead and keep shouting on the internet. I’m sure you’ll convince everyone you’re right any day now.
I’ll let the others pile on with the obvious observation re the train tunnel under and abutting this property but your def of gentrification is, like you, arse backwards. It’s green space that attracts gentrification – people with money like amenities, open spaces, parks, etc. Read the Depaul paper on the affects of property values and gentrification following the completion of the Bloomingdale Trail.
LOL!
Another hilariously off-target hot take from Tupper.
The consistency is at least admirable…
“Gentrification is when they DON’T build a park”?
Yeah, sure buddy
Like others said, CTA would not allow a building here – that’s why some version of this park design has been around for over a decade. Could a building be done? Probably. Would it have penciled out without government funding? I doubt it.
I like a pocket park here, but worried it’s going to become a homeless encampment where no one will want to hang out. Could be a good place to chill on the weekends when they have farmers markets and other street events. May be a waste of space for the 9 months of winter in Chicago unless it’s landscaped really well.
It will have homeless. Even they don’t want to live on the south side.
Racist dogwhistle.
Way to be a horrible person, Matt. $10 you’ve never been south of Roosevelt.
Just ignore him. He’ll go away. I’m near the intersection of West Ohio and Ashland Avenue right now.
Addressing the coming concerns I expect will arrive in the comments–
1. I believe updated renderings are coming soon
2. CTA required a 10’+ easement with no significant structures from their vertical retaining wall, making building this site up nearly impossible
3. Current renderings do not include a “vertical monument” (pillar) that will be included
All the above was discussed at an earlier community meeting.
This board needs a basic “mute user” function.
Undevelopable land, but also a terrible location for a new plaza. In a place already oversaturated with plazas, an narrow strip of land surrounded on 3 sides by arterials and train tunnel exits sounds like a miserable place to hang out, play, or socialize. Despite my proclivity for walking and transit I’m tempted to say that a parking lot might be a better use of land here.
One of the most used skate parks in San Francisco is at the exit of a highway ramp, a major arterial, and literally underneath 4 lanes of an elevated highway.
I won’t say this is the best public space to find serenity, but if it’s designed well, people will use it. What is needed is some sort of cafe kiosk. Without that active use, the passive use will be much less utilized. Mariano Park is a lovely spot of refuge surrounded by three heavily used streets of traffic. If they can make that tiny triangle pleasant, this site has triple the area to do better.
In the future, the plaza is supposed to span to Linden Pl. to the south
That resolves my concerns about it being a narrow strip, but that Linden Pl lot looks like a very good lot. Drew convinced me that something nice could be built in the existing plaza plans, but the large Linden plot should be housing.
Logan Square is a neighborhood with intense housing pressures and a lot of existing unactivated green space. We shouldn’t be eminent-domaining good land for a plaza in an already plaza-rich area of Chicago
Love this!
I wish this was still going to be an apple orchard
I’m very upset they ripped out the patio for la boulangerie and all those wonderful trees. But this design is very promising
Who will be managing this “plaza”?