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Option A (See Plate 28; 159 acres plan A)
Option A
was the most environmentally sensitive of the three
options. It clustered development to the west side of
the stream in order to preserve the woodlands and
beautiful open meadow that lies within the eastern
portion of the property. Access was from a long single
drive that extended the street pattern proposed for
the greenway development immediately to the south,
and there were no expensive stream crossings. Under
this alternative, the property could support approxi-
mately 1 000 000 square feet (92 900 square meters)
of development in a series of four-story buildings
with parking accommodated in one very large four-
story deck with additional surface car parks. It also
avoided putting any development near the already
fragile stream at the eastern edge of the site. While this
alternative preserved nearly 70 percent of the site
and gave some interstate visibility above the treetops,
we were forced to admit that serving this amount
of office development from one access point was
impractical.
Option B (See Plate 29; 159 acres plan B)
Option B
illustrated the opposite point of view, opening the
site up for more intensive development while preserv-
ing a smaller percentage of open space. This plan
spread the development across the site, but still pre-
served part of the meadow as one end of a large
neighborhood park framed by offices, apartments,
and a hotel. The main stream was also protected as a
greenway within and beyond this park, but parking
lots backed up to the other stream on the eastern
edge, compounding its environmental problems.
Parking was provided in surface lots only, but the
parking was terraced into the landscape behind the
buildings. The placement and smaller size of build-
ings, generally two to three-storys, was dictated by
providing cheaper but lower capacity surface parking
in lieu of expensive parking decks.
Because of the more extensive street layout (with
two expensive stream crossings) and a direct connec-
tion to the road leading to the adjacent freeway
interchange, there was a greater opportunity for
a mixed-use development. This alternative illustrated
opportunities for a 300-room conference hotel
(in pink) fronting on the park, numerous restaurants
and specialty shops ((in red) nearest the interchange)
with apartments and corporate offices lining the
streets.
Option C (See Plate 30; 159 acres plan C)
Option C
was a compromise and a blend of A and B. It
included nearly as much development as Option B,
but kept the development activity on the southern
and eastern parts of the site and maintained the
northwestern part of the site including the main-
stream corridor as open space. To address the parking
requirements for this type of clustering, parking
decks would be needed for the offices on the west
side of the site to permit construction of two four-
story, 100 000 square foot (9290 square meters)
buildings. The remaining five office buildings in this
cluster were proposed as two storys, though taller
buildings could be built with additional structured
parking.
Surface parking was provided for all the other
buildings. If practicable, parking decks could be con-
structed instead of surface parking on the east side of
the site to minimize grading and cluster the develop-
ment more tightly to preserve a larger proportion of
the meadow, which was almost completely lost in this
alternative. The main stream however was left in its
natural state, except for one bridge crossing at the
southern part of the site to connect with the office
development on the west side.
We made the four office buildings on the east side
four or five storys – hence the expansive fields of
surface parking to avoid the cost of decks while still
providing parking at four spaces per 1000 square feet
(92.9 square meters). The mixed-use buildings
comprised three blocks of ground floor shops and
restaurants with two to four stories of offices and
apartments above. On-street parking was provided
on all the streets along with a pedestrian-scaled
streetscape of curb and gutter, street trees and side-
walks. Sidewalks in front of shops should be at least
15 feet (4.6 meters) wide (see Figure 10.16), while all
other locations should be 6–8 feet (1.8–2.4 meters)
wide. It was also important to us to retain ‘green con-
nections’ through the site and beneath the freeway to
link with the nearby forest preserves (located on the
CHAPTER EIGHT
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THE CITY
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edge of the CORE area of the previous case study) for
walking and bicycling trails.
While there were trade-offs for each scenario, by
the conclusion of the charrette, and in the light of the
state’s firm intention to sell the site for its maximum
development potential, we generally supported the
development of the property under Option C with
the hope that more parking decks could enable sev-
eral office buildings to be resited to preserve more of
the original meadow as illustrated in Option B.