Grant Park Conservancy

The Grant Park Conservancy and Advisory Council, with help from the Chicago Park District, are having two Earth Day volunteer days in Grant Park:  Saturday, April 19 and Sunday,  April 20th.  Both are from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

 Exelon Volunteers Help to Save the Trees at Grant Park

An invitation from the Grant Park Conservancy and Grant Park Advisory Council with help from the Chicago Park District.

When: Saturday, April 19, 2008 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Where: Meet at Grant Park - Daley Bicentennial Plaza, 337 E. Randolph, just east of Columbus Drive across from the BlueCross BlueShield Building. This is at the Chicago Park District field house.

Join Exelon volunteers to help the environment and Grant Park - Chicago's front yard and the 2016 Olympics celebration central. Come out and show your civic pride in Grant Park - home to the world's largest green roofs! 

As part of the company’s efforts to address climate change, Exelon is dedicated to making this a big day, bringing together employees from across northern Illinois to work in the park. This is the third year the company has volunteered for Grant Park as part of its environmental service activities.  Please help us make this the biggest Earth Day celebration right in Chicago's front yard. 

Over the last two years, we have been able to plant close to 2000 trees in Grant Park with help from the Chicago Park District.  We will continue this effort by mulching and caring for these trees on April 19.  In addition, we will also be cleaning up the park as we go.

It's great exercise, it's productive, it's fun and it helps the environment.  T-shirts and refreshments will be provided.

 And:

Green Apple Festival with JPMorgan Chase with help from the Chicago Park District.

 Earth Day Network & Green Apple Festival  are hosting simultaneous Earth Day celebrations in landmark parks across the country in: Washington DC, New York City, Miami, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When:  Sunday, April 20, 2008 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 Noon.

Where: Meet at Grant Park - Daley Bicentennial Plaza,  337 E. Randolph just east of Columbus Drive across from the BlueCross BlueShield Building.  This is at the Chicago Park District field house.

JPMorgan Chase is sending many volunteers to help the trees in Grant Park.  Please come make this a very successful Earth Day celebration in Chicago's front yard and home to the largest green roofs in the world.  Your help will improve the green on the green roofs.

We will be mulching trees (by working with the Chicago Park District, we have worked to get 1000's of trees planted in Grant Park, close to two thousand in the last year).

We will also be picking up left-over winter litter and debris.

It's great exercise, it's productive, it's fun and it helps our trees and the environment.

Thank you!

Bob O'Neill

Grant Park Conservancy

Grant Park Advisory Council

cell: 312-927-6795

Grant Park Advisory Council and Grant Park Conservancy public meeting

Celebrating urban nature and the coming of spring

Monday, March 10, 2008 - 6:30 p.m.

Daley Bicentennial Plaza - 337 E. Randolph ( just east of Columbus Drive across from the BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois Building and in the park)

Urban nature and open green space along Chicago's lakefront: nearly 20 years of creating positive,  environmentally-friendly change with thousands of trees planted and hundreds of acres of new green space created by Mayor Daley and the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District with the help from corporations, individual citizens and other organizations through public/private partnerships.

and...Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation - Northerly Island Bird Hospital: we are entering the spring bird migration season.  Come see beautiful raptors: a Red-Tailed Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, an Eastern Screech-Owl and an American Kestrel live and up close and learn about these wonderful, majestic birds of prey.  Many people have never seen these birds this close. Grant Park rabbits beware!  We think it is a wise idea to give a hoot about these birds. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see any cuckoo birds.  Some say we have too many already.

Come see an extensive PowerPoint presentation on the nearly 20 years of history-making, green space creation in Chicago.  Grant Park projects, the Museum Campus, Northerly Island, acres of Soldier Field asphalt, surface parking lots removed, Jane Addams Park parking lot removed, Navy Pier headlands, Lake Shore Drive Medians, Lakeshore East Park, many new parks in Central Station and the South Loop, removal of many asphalt parking lots east of LSD, Millennium Park, soon-to-be DuSable Park, Sir Georg Solti Garden,  Hutchinson Field, and the Green at Grant Park are just a few of the hundreds of acres of new green space created and/or thousands of trees that have been planted on Chicago's lakefront, a lakefront for all of Chicago and for the world.  There have also been all sorts of green initiatives like the removal of the enormous, asphalt parking lot at the Museum of Science Industry on the south lakefront and the landscaping along south Lake Shore Drive and many projects in Lincoln Park and these will be discussed but we will concentrate on the downtown lakefront.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation at Northerly Island Bird hospital - We are entering the beginning of the famous international migratory bird season where millions of migrants fly through Chicago in the spring time.  Dawn Keller will give a presentation that will blow you away.  Her work has really taken flight.  The Grant Park Conservancy and Chicago Park District have partnered with her to create a bird hospital at Northerly Island to be closer to the injured wildlife in downtown Chicago and avoid lengthy commutes to the suburbs with injured wildlife.   What she does there and her education outreach and scientific data collection are truly remarkable.  Come hear it first hand and meet some of the raptors.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation is a state and federally licensed facility dedicated to the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned wildlife with the goal of returning fully rehabilitated wildlife to its natural habitat.  Flint Creek promotes respect for wildlife and wildlife habitats through public education programs.  Flint Creek also supports efforts to repopulate endangered and threatened wildlife species. 

Thank you for your interest and participation!

Please contact: Bob O'Neill, 312-829-8015. 

Grant Park Advisory Council and Grant Park Conservancy public meeting

Parkitecture 2008 

Monday,  February 11, 2008 - 6:30 p.m.

Daley Bicentennial Plaza - 337 E. Randolph ( just east of Columbus Drive across from the BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois Building and in the park)

Grant Park's rapidly-changing Michigan Avenue Streetwall (Historic Michigan Boulevard District)

We will present a visual description of past, present and future projects and the many new plans and changes.  We will also include the new high rises on Wabash and some of the changes on the north and south walls quickly completing Grant Park's frame with new, modern high-rises.  It will also be a discussion of how to encourage more changes, renovations and improvements.

Our speakers will be:

Denise Casalino, Vice President,  Earth Tech.  Denise is a recent, former Commissioner of Planning and Development at the City of Chicago.  She was also the project manager for the new $200 million Wacker Driver Reconstruction Project.  She completed the 21-month-long and one of the City's most complicated public works projects under budget and on time. She also streamlined the City of Chicago's permit process and finalized the development of block 37. Denise is a civil engineer.

Ken DeMuth, Architect, Pappageorge/Haymes. Ken is an expert in adaptive reuse and renovation developments.  His notable adaptive reuse and historic preservation projects in Chicago include:  Metropolitan Tower - 310 S. Michigan Avenue, The Park Monroe, The Montgomery, Domain, Metropolitan Place (former Florsheim Shoe headquarters)  Haberdasher Square, the Fisher Building, 116 S. Michigan, and the new Chicago Central Post Office adaptive reuse.

Peter Psihas, Director of Sales and Marketing,The Blackstone, A Renaissance Hotel.  Peter has an 18-year history in hospitality. Peter will give a visual presentation of this restored landmark hotel, opening on Grant Park later this month. This Marshall and Fox masterpiece is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Sage Hospitality Resources, of Denver, Colorado is finishing up the renovation.  It is a $110-plus million renovation of a long dormant hotel next to DePaul University's historic Merle Reskin Theatre on Balbo Drive. The hotel hosted many U.S. Presidents and countless celebrities.

Six years ago this month, the City of Chicago designated Grant Park's Michigan Avenue streetwall a Chicago Landmark.  It comprises buildings designed by such great architects as: Adler & Sullivan, Burnham, Holabird & Roche, Marshall & Fox, Cobb, Beman, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, and Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge. It is one of the world's most-recognized architecture walls framing the increasingly rejuvenated and world-class Grant Park. 

There are big plans for Grant Park's streetwall and there are many changes underway and even more planned.  However, with all of these success stories, there are also deteriorating buildings (one even boarded up and scaffolded) and empty lots right on Grant Park/Millennium Park.  With the many changes to the streetwall,  there are buildings not realizing their potential, even a closed, historic theater.  

What can we do to encourage and support more adaptive re-use and other development in this slower real estate market to create a more lively, energized district and thus Grant Park?  

Thank you for your interest and participation.

Please contact:

Bob O'Neill

Phone:   312-829-8015