Jeanne Gang challenged the idea of the large casino floor plate and discussed how when a building typology is added into an urban setting, they need to transform. Due to the nature of the site and adjacent railroad tracks from Union Pacific, the casino volume had to stretch and get longer to achieve the necessary size.

According to the design team, regulations require the casino to be a contained space with a limited number of secured access points.

Referencing the long, blank facade, committee members questioned the quality of the pedestrian experience along the new N. Stretching multiple city blocks, the building will ultimately be enclosed with no windows along a newly constructed N. Chicago Ave, a 3,000-seat theater further to the south, with the large casino building in between. With SCB leading a larger group of architects and consultants on the design, the casino project will include a 500-foot-tall hotel tower at the north along W. Members of the committee challenged the notion of an increased need for cars, considering Chicago’s strong access to transit and the actual reality of the multi-modal nature of the area, considering access by pedestrians, bicycles, public transit, and rideshare. The representative from Bally’s said there is quite a lot of work going into determining the parking count, with their analysis seeing the casino as a regional site where many will commute to the casino, in turn requiring higher parking counts. Renauld Mitchell pushed back on Bally’s and questioned whether remote parking could be considered to relieve the direct impact on the immediate vicinity. Halsted St in response to intense community pushback.

While they are working on an ongoing traffic study, this regional route is planned to avoid a high volume of cars on W. Orleans St, Walker was concerned about congestion at that point. With only one lane of southbound traffic on N. Grand Ave, and then onto the site from the south end. With Bally’s expecting about 3,000 cars to visit the site, their regional access plan calls for cars to exit the Kennedy Expressway using the Ohio Street feeder, turn right onto N. The discussion opened with questions from Leon Walker regarding the traffic plan. To approach our reporting with “relative” brevity, we will look at the project through the lens of the lengthy, exhaustive discussion that touched every inch of the proposal and turned it inside out. Over the course of two hours, the committee spent more than an hour on their discussion after hearing a long-winded presentation on the multi-faceted, complex project.

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