Funding has been secured for the renovation and re-opening of the southern entrance of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). Located on the northern end of Jackson Park within Hyde Park, the massive museum just received funding for the project in the form of a $10 million grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
Details have been revealed for the renovation and expansion of the South Side Community Art Center at 3831 S Michigan Avenue in Bronzeville. Located just north of the intersection with E Pershing Road, the center currently operates out of a historic mansion with a vacant side yard. Design efforts are being led by Future Firm, with wrkSHäp serving as the preservation architect.
Plans are proceeding for ‘The Free To BE Village’ at 4427 N Clark Street in Uptown. Led by the Black Ensemble Theater across the street, the new mixed-use project will replace a one-story commercial building, parking lot, and small vacant lot on the corner with W Sunnyside Avenue. Made up of two buildings, the development will rise in two phases as well.
Construction crews continue to add tiles of granite cladding to the Museum Tower’s exterior on the Obama Presidential Center campus in Jackson Park. And in September, they installed a glass art piece by Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu on the building’s north façade. Titled “Uprising of the Sun,” the piece consists of 35 individual panels and measures 83 feet by 25 feet.
The Home Court at the Obama Presidential Center is under construction at 6121 South Stony Avenue in the Woodlawn Community Area. The two-story athletic and event facility occupies the southwest corner of the sprawling construction site in Jackson Park, just west of Wooded Island and its West Lagoon. Moody Nolan designed the building for The Obama Foundation. Elevated Design Builders, a team formed by BOWA Construction and AECOM/Hunt, is the general contractor.
