ThirdCoast312
March 9th, 2005, 01:26 AM
Wooing tourists to Loop
STATE STREET group works with New York firm to attract more shoppers
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March 07, 2005
By Sandra Jones
An extreme proposal to liven up the Loop: upside-down el track landscaping. Courtesy of the Greater STATE STREET Council and sLab Architecture
Leave it to two guys from New York to come up with outlandish ways to dress up the Loop.
The Greater STATE STREET Council is working with New York-based urban design firm sLab Architecture LLC to "brand" the Loop in an effort to attract more shoppers and tourists.
The plan, unveiled at the trade group's annual meeting late last month, ranges from the outlandish — creating a recreational "Bucky Beach" by moving the lakefront closer to Buckingham Fountain — to the obvious tactics of installing signs to better direct Millennium Park tourists westward to the shopping along STATE STREET.
UPSIDE-DOWN TREES
While no one expects the city to build a beach across Lake Shore Drive, the firm's ideas are sparking conversations about taking a fresh look at sprucing up the Loop, says Ty Tabing, executive director of the Greater STATE STREET Council.
One notion Mr. Tabing says caught Mayor Richard M. Daley's attention, appealing to his penchant for foliage: a "hydroponic nutrient film" technique that allows for landscaping upside down under the elevated train tracks. Inverted greenery first appeared on the national landscape in 1999 in an exhibit at Mass MoCA, a contemporary arts museum in North Adams, Mass. Six live trees were suspended upside down, eight feet above the lawn, from a specially made stainless-steel structure.
SLab founders Jeffrey Johnson and Jeffrey Inaba want to do the same with the el.
"This became a project to create ideas that may seem extreme, but that form a basis of how to move forward," Mr. Johnson says. "Chicago has a history of bigness and boldness, and we wanted to come up with ideas (that reflect) that."
Among the more unrealistic ideas that drew incredulous chuckles at the annual meeting was a photo illustration showing the el tracks over Madison STREET turned into a roller coaster design to allow for a better view of the billowing curves of Frank Gehry's concert pavilion at Millennium Park. Mr. Tabing acknowledges the image as "pie in the sky" but says such thought-provoking ideas are necessary, as merchants approach the longstanding question of how to draw visitors from North Michigan Avenue and the lakefront to shops in the Loop.
EMBELLISHING EFFORTS
For now, Mr. Tabing says, the council is focusing on adding a few "bells and whistles" to the city's efforts, already under way, to improve Wabash Avenue. The design firm proposed installing rows of narrow lights under the el tracks, changing the color according to the season. The city modified the proposal and is looking into installing artistic lighting on the sides of el platforms.
The council is also looking into color-coded directional markers paired with a marketing campaign to create Loop tours focusing on culture, architecture, restaurants, theater and shopping. Itineraries would be available to make it easy for visitors to identify Loop spots great for a girls' night out, a first date or a weekend family outing. The STATE STREET council also is considering sLab's proposal to broadcast images, such as the Weather Channel or a sports game, on blank facades of buildings, if it can be done in a tasteful manner.
"A lot of the things they suggested probably were unrealistic," says Joshua H. Gartier, vice-president of Poster Plus on South Michigan Avenue. "But it's great that they're thinking like this. We'll have to see what actually comes to pass."
©2005 by Crain Communications Inc.
STATE STREET group works with New York firm to attract more shoppers
http://chicagobusiness.com/mag/images/articles/23213.gif
March 07, 2005
By Sandra Jones
An extreme proposal to liven up the Loop: upside-down el track landscaping. Courtesy of the Greater STATE STREET Council and sLab Architecture
Leave it to two guys from New York to come up with outlandish ways to dress up the Loop.
The Greater STATE STREET Council is working with New York-based urban design firm sLab Architecture LLC to "brand" the Loop in an effort to attract more shoppers and tourists.
The plan, unveiled at the trade group's annual meeting late last month, ranges from the outlandish — creating a recreational "Bucky Beach" by moving the lakefront closer to Buckingham Fountain — to the obvious tactics of installing signs to better direct Millennium Park tourists westward to the shopping along STATE STREET.
UPSIDE-DOWN TREES
While no one expects the city to build a beach across Lake Shore Drive, the firm's ideas are sparking conversations about taking a fresh look at sprucing up the Loop, says Ty Tabing, executive director of the Greater STATE STREET Council.
One notion Mr. Tabing says caught Mayor Richard M. Daley's attention, appealing to his penchant for foliage: a "hydroponic nutrient film" technique that allows for landscaping upside down under the elevated train tracks. Inverted greenery first appeared on the national landscape in 1999 in an exhibit at Mass MoCA, a contemporary arts museum in North Adams, Mass. Six live trees were suspended upside down, eight feet above the lawn, from a specially made stainless-steel structure.
SLab founders Jeffrey Johnson and Jeffrey Inaba want to do the same with the el.
"This became a project to create ideas that may seem extreme, but that form a basis of how to move forward," Mr. Johnson says. "Chicago has a history of bigness and boldness, and we wanted to come up with ideas (that reflect) that."
Among the more unrealistic ideas that drew incredulous chuckles at the annual meeting was a photo illustration showing the el tracks over Madison STREET turned into a roller coaster design to allow for a better view of the billowing curves of Frank Gehry's concert pavilion at Millennium Park. Mr. Tabing acknowledges the image as "pie in the sky" but says such thought-provoking ideas are necessary, as merchants approach the longstanding question of how to draw visitors from North Michigan Avenue and the lakefront to shops in the Loop.
EMBELLISHING EFFORTS
For now, Mr. Tabing says, the council is focusing on adding a few "bells and whistles" to the city's efforts, already under way, to improve Wabash Avenue. The design firm proposed installing rows of narrow lights under the el tracks, changing the color according to the season. The city modified the proposal and is looking into installing artistic lighting on the sides of el platforms.
The council is also looking into color-coded directional markers paired with a marketing campaign to create Loop tours focusing on culture, architecture, restaurants, theater and shopping. Itineraries would be available to make it easy for visitors to identify Loop spots great for a girls' night out, a first date or a weekend family outing. The STATE STREET council also is considering sLab's proposal to broadcast images, such as the Weather Channel or a sports game, on blank facades of buildings, if it can be done in a tasteful manner.
"A lot of the things they suggested probably were unrealistic," says Joshua H. Gartier, vice-president of Poster Plus on South Michigan Avenue. "But it's great that they're thinking like this. We'll have to see what actually comes to pass."
©2005 by Crain Communications Inc.