Residents, design team debate look, function of new park tied to Bloomingdale Trail

Area residents debated the look and function of a new park at Milwaukee and Leavitt Avenues Thursday, with competing views coming from dog owners, family advocates and cyclists. The park would serve as a future access point for the Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated linear park that will cross through Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Bucktown and Wicker Park.

About 40 people attended the meeting hosted by The Chicago Park District, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail and Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) at the Holstein Park Auditorium."

There's a lot of good people working on these projects," Waguespack said.

The project site, known as Park 567, is a 100 by 130 feet parcel of land that previously was the site of a single story industrial building. The site is owned by the City of Chicago, but the city is conveying the land to the Chicago Park District. The park site is connected to an upward slope to the Bloomingdale Trail and a downward slope away from the trail toward the roadways.

Funding for the building of the park has been secured through $450,000 in donations from the MetLife Foundation and The Stenning on Lake Geneva Conservancy Society which must be used for the building of the park and not for any maintenance work after its completion.

Matthew Urbanski of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., a landscape architecture firm based in Brooklyn, N.Y. that is part of the trail design team, showed residents visuals of possible concepts for the park based on the design team's takeaways from the public "charrette weekend" in October. The park would definitely include at 240 foot ramp in order to comply with ADA requirements. The ramp would have to take on a zig-zag or snake-like shape in order to fit in the space.

Urbanski said popular ideas for the use of the park were gathering, relaxing and walking. Features frequently mentioned were planted areas, fixed and movable seating, water features, food vendors and a bike repair station. Urbanski said the design team did not wish to duplicate the features of nearby parks Lucy Flowers, Maplewood, Churchill Field and Erhler, which are very child-oriented and feature playgrounds.

Some residents argued that the new park would not be appealing to children because the possible concepts shown do not feature a playground. Urbanski said the park could include things that aren't typical of playgrounds, but are still stimulating, such as the water features and large, smooth rocks that can be used for seating and climbing purposes.

"You're creating an environment that invites people to engage with it creatively," Urbanski said.

Several residents voiced concern that the park would be too focused on the cycling community and questioned the need for a bike repair station with bike shops nearby.

Rich Kinczyk, project manager at the TPL, said it makes sense to accommodate bikes in the park since Milwaukee Avenue is home to the second busiest bike lanes in Chicago-second only to the Lakefront Trail. But Kinczyk said the design ideas are very conceptual at this stage and the park will be a "faith landscape" since the park will not be completed at once, and park features will likely have to be moved around once the sloped land is developed.

Dog owners and pet-free residents alike agreed that they would prefer if the park not become a dog park since Churchill Field Park is dog-friendly and there are grassy areas across from the new park where dogs could roam. Concerns were voiced about the park becoming a dog park regardless, since it will take time to construct the park and people will use the space as they see fit in the meantime.

Dan Porgorzelski, vice-president of the Northwest Chicago Historical Society and co-founder of Forgotten Chicago, asked how the history of Milwaukee Avenue and the area would be incorporated into the new park. Kinczyk said one possibility is adding a bike counter kiosk to track how many bikes are traveling through and that the kiosk could also display a map and information about the history of the area.

Christy Webber, who owns a landscaping company in Humboldt Park, said she is also concerned about implementing the area's history and questioned how the park will mesh with the trail and the region it spans. She said she fears that the park's features will be based on donations rather than the input of residents, resulting in a site that resembles Millennium Park.

"It needs unity, [the park and trail] need to be tied together," she said. "I hope that we're strong enough as a community, and we have strong architects that will toe the line on the mission of the trail."

Brandon Antoniewicz, who lives very close to the park on Leavitt Avenue, said he has been pleased with the input and design process, which he described as open and transparent. Antoniewicz also said the speed at which the process has been moving has been pleasantly surprising.

"I think it's fantastic. I'm incredibly excited about the Bloomingdale Trail," he said. "We're very fortunate to add more green space."

There will be another Bloomingdale Trail community meeting, this one focused on the trail as a whole, on Dec. 13 from 6-8 p.m. a the St. Mary of the Angels School Auditorium, 1810 N. Hermitage. A community meeting to further discuss the new park at Milwaukee and Leavitt will likely occur in January 2012.

Story by Marisa Paulson, student, Northwestern University

Photos courtesy of Jacob Kaplan, Forgotten Chicago