DOWNTOWN — A key city panel will consider restricting the heights of new buildings along a stretch of South Michigan Avenue to 900 feet in an effort to preserve the integrity of the historic Downtown streetwall.
The city's planning department this afternoon will introduce guidelines for new building heights along the boulevard from 8th to 11th streets. The guidelines will go before a committee of the city's landmarks commission, which could consider the guidelines when reviewing building permits for future developments on the street. The stretch from 8th to 11th is part of the Historic Michigan Boulevard District, a landmarked area since 2002.
"Most of the buildable sites located in the District are located at the south boundary, from Eighth to Eleventh Street, with less than 50 percent of the streetwall frontage contributing to the historic district," the planning department says in a memo to the commission. "These facts, coupled with the existing new high-rise construction around these two blocks, supports new construction that may bridge the height differences between the existing historic buildings in the core of the district and the new construction south of Eleventh Street at the district boundary."
The proposal follows a decision by a developer to cut the height on a tower it wants to build at 1000 S. Michigan Ave. from about 1,000 feet to 832 feet following lukewarm reception from neighbors. Though further south, a developer who proposed a different apartment tower at 13th Street and Michigan cut his tower by about 75 feet following pressure from the neighborhood. Then again, in November the city signed off on a pair of towers rising at least 76 stories near the southern end of Grant Park.
The affected 800 to 1100 blocks of South Michigan include the Essex Inn and other vintage mid-rise buildings, but also low-slung parking garages and more modern towers belonging to universities.
The landmarks committee hearing is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. Thursday on the second floor of City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle St. If approved, the full commission would vote on the guidelines next month.
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