Public Watchdog.org

“PROUD”? Of What?

11.21.07

We here at PublicWatchdog are fans of Park Ridge.  We appreciate its character as a quiet, predominantly single-family home, bedroom suburb of Chicago conveniently located to almost anything a person could need or want.  And we get the impression that most of the people who live here feel the same way.

Which is why we continue to be amazed at how a relatively small group of people seem so intent on making significant changes to the small-town character and feel our community – with little or no accountability to the residents.  And we’re even more amazed at how they seem to be getting away with it.

It has been several years since a number of our local movers and shakers, many of whom are business owners and real estate professionals with economic interests in commercial property in town, decided that they were tired of the traditional Park Ridge and embarked on an Uptown Redevelopment (“UR”) plan to change the face and the character of the Uptown area. 

They baited us with talk about making Uptown a retail mecca, but they immediately switched us into helping the developers pick the “low-hanging fruit” – building condos and townhouses – while throwing in only enough retail to make things look legit.  After baiting us with rumors of big-name retailers like Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods, The Gap, Ann Taylor and Crate & Barrel, they smoothly switched us to lower-profile brands like Trader Joe’s, Chico’s and Joseph A. Banks.  Meanwhile, big-time retailer interest was so lacking that 15,000 square feet of retail space was redesigned into more condos. 

With such an inauspicious beginning to this redevelopment, one might expect that adopting a wait-and-see attitude as to further development would be the most prudent approach.  But now comes word that some of those same movers and shakers who gave us Target Area II have formed a new organization in town that is devoting its efforts to pushing for even more – and faster – redevelopment. 

Calling itself Park Ridge Organization for Uptown Development, or “PROUD,” it is billed as a not-for-profit, volunteer-based organization – although it already has received a substantial amount of taxpayer support by virtue of the City’s Economic Development Director, Kim Uhlig, having spent a great deal of her time during October assisting PROUD in its organization and start-up.

In a recent letter to the Herald-Advocate (“Help PROUD unify area businesses here,” Nov. 1 – PDF), local dentist Ross Rubino – not surprisingly, an Uptown commercial property owner – touted PROUD as “an important advocate for change” in response to what he called the “glacial pace” of UR.  He identified PROUD’s goals as making Uptown “as vibrant and meaningful…as possible” by promoting redevelopment that will “maintain the basic feel of our community” while “enhancing our considerable assets.” 

“Vibrant” has been the main UR buzzword since Day One, although not even UR’s biggest cheerleaders have ever explained exactly what it means in connection with our unique community.  Does “vibrant” mean 20% more people milling around the streets at night?  Or a 2:00 a.m. jazz club on Prospect?  Or 35% more businesses staying open past 8:00 p.m. on week nights?  Nobody seems willing to say.

The same goes for spurring redevelopment that will “maintain the basic feel of our community.”  Nobody is explaining how the “basic feel” of Uptown is being “maintained” by the addition of those hulking 4-story buildings in Target Area II that dwarf both the neighboring buildings (even Summit Square retirement home) and the structures formerly on those sites.

And what specifically are “our considerable assets” that are being enhanced by all this development?  Park Ridge’s primary “asset” has always been its location – comfortably close to both the Loop and O’Hare Airport, not too far from Lake Michigan, with relatively convenient access to the Tri-State and major shopping venues like Old Orchard, Northbrook Court, Woodfield Mall and Oakbrook Court.  Has the new development somehow changed our location when we weren’t looking?  

According to Rubino, PROUD is also trotting out the “more dining, shopping, and event options in our Uptown area” party line – the same tactic that was used to sell UR to us several years ago.  But PROUD has an extra card up its sleeve: The prospect of Park Ridge signing onto the “Main Street” redevelopment program [PDF], which ostensibly is designed for historic preservation of traditional business districts.  Neither Rubino nor PROUD are saying, however, what “unique [Uptown] qualities” and “historic [Uptown] buildings” deserve to be enhanced and preserved through the “Main Street” program.

We support reasonable development that both preserves and enhances the unique character of our community.  But the current Target Area II development eliminated rather than “preserved” what was on that site; and we won’t be able to tell whether it enhances our community until it is completed and our residents get an opportunity to more readily judge for themselves whether the results are attractive enough and economically successful enough to justify more of the same.

For those reasons alone, any rush toward new development deals would be foolish.  And being foolish is certainly nothing to be PROUD of.