SOUTH LOOP — Construction equipment on a massive development site slated for a new Downtown neighborhood has piqued interest from South Loop neighbors, but the developer says it's just pushing dirt.
Related Midwest, which closed earlier this year on the 62-acre property near Clark Street and Roosevelt Road, said the trucks and other equipment it recently deployed on the site aren't up to anything exciting.
"We are clearing a path at Clark and Roosevelt in order to better access and assess the site," Tricia Van Horn, a Related spokeswoman, told DNAinfo Chicago last month.
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Though minor, the work is an encouraging sign of progress at the site, the largest tract of developable land Downtown, and one that's sat fallow for decades.
Looking south at the development site. [DNAinfo/David Matthews]
Disgraced developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko once planned as many as 4,500 homes on the property, but sold it in 2005 to a foreign investor that left it vacant during the ensuing recession.
Related Midwest — which also owns the hole in the ground dug for the Chicago Spire off Lake Shore Drive — bought the property earlier this year after Mayor Rahm Emanuel threatened to seize the property through eminent domain.
Related has yet to make its plans public, but has since hired an architect for the project — a massive endeavor it says will likely take 15 years and billions of dollars to build.
The city in September started work on the "Wells-Wentworth Connector," a road running along the site connecting Chinatown to Downtown.
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