The City’s Committee on Design weighs in on Bally’s Casino design.
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The downtown casino plan has a surprising ally: Chicago River lovers. Many of the details are being sorted out. But advocates say enough safeguards are in place to ensure that what happens at the casino site will improve the river, too.
“I’m stating the obvious here, but the transformation of that stretch of the river between Function A, what it was, and Function B, what it will be, is going to be one of the most dramatic switches that we’ve seen in the river,” Masengarb said.
For now, the big printing plant known as Freedom Center shrugs off the river with its stark brick wall. Along with the property’s massive private parking lot, it holds the “saddest park ever,” according to what Masengarb said she’s heard Chicago Architecture Center river tour docents call it: “There’s, like, one picnic table.”
So what’s going in its place will be, almost by default, a big improvement. And it will be significant beyond its site as a vital part of the connective tissue linking the improved river downtown to what it will be elsewhere.
“The casino district now creates a destination,” said Maurice Cox, Lightfoot’s planning and development commissioner. “So, I feel like that’s the next thing: Let’s establish a green plan and character of the casino district. And that will then inform the way the rest of the river should develop.”
In the renderings Bally’s has released, the riverside portions of the site are transformed into a kind of Riverwalk north, with dining options along the promenade. Wide steps descend from the casino’s clear-glass walls to the river edge, where water taxis can dock. Kayakers paddle out front. A terraced park toward the south of the property brings in fountains and green space, albeit in front of a fence at the waterside. A pedestrian bridge connects the casino site’s park area to an existing park across the water.
A great addition to the riverfront will create jobs and a fun-filled entertainment district for the community.
