The Cubs have once again filed plans to fill in one of the most egregious holes in the urban fabric, the block-long car wash/parking lot wasteland immediately to the west of Wrigley Field. Yes, ownership of the Seminary railroad ROW is still under litigation between the city and the Cubs, but the proposal would largely re-open it as a pedestrian walkway.

I’d be curious to know exactly how the land just west of Wrigley ever got to be such a wasteland, especially when Clark Street to the north and south are largely intact and when there’s obviously such strong market demand for pedestrian oriented retail, entertainment, and housing (oh, and parking) in the area. It may have to do with the old Lakewood-Seminary railroad (see map — the diagonal approaching from the SSW), but that’s been filled in with largely contextual residential to the south. Right at Addison and Clark, fast food restaurants have occupied the old ROW and adjacent parcels since anyone can remember.

Parking, even when structured into flatiron buildings that provide urban form and ground-level retail (as the Cubs and Philip Bess have proposed), may not be a suitable use for the neighborhood already wracked by road rage inducing traffic congestion on a daily basis. A thousand more cars may pay very profitable rents indeed, but Lakeview’s roads just couldn’t handle the additional load. The Cubs would be better off with the team-support and office uses above ground, with parking still provided off site (or not at all).