Thomas Corfman in Crain’s Chicago Business reports on a rumored new art house cinema in the West Loop:

bq. Sundance Cinemas LLC is close to signing a letter of intent to open a six- to eight-screen theater in a 266,000-square-foot, multistory development proposed… at 1137 W. Jackson Blvd… Called Metro Center 290, to play up the location along Interstate 290, plans for the project also include a specialty grocery store and a health club.

Not necessarily any closer to me than the Music Box or Landmark’s Century Centre, but at least on the Blue Line (a block from Racine/Congress). Yet… why not at Block 37?

Two neat sites that uncover what should be common knowledge:
* Crain’s put up a “Market Facts”:http://www.chicagobusiness.com/marketFacts.html page to complement this week’s issue, featuring interactive maps of Chicago community areas devised by CNT using ESRI data. Several show 2000-2006 (est.) changes in population, race/ethnicity, and income, although the usual caveats about midyear estimates apply. One shows how much money each CA spends on gas in the aggregate (pretty shocking to think that my neighborhood spends $70M on gas a year — that could buy one hella lot of single-speed bikes); another, MP3 player ownership. I can probably personally attest that far more than 1,905 West Town-ners own MP3 players, judging from the rush-hour crowds boarding the Blue Line.

* Austin has an exemplary “downtown redevelopment”:http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/ info portal, with printable posters highlighting what’s under construction, the standard GIS viewer, a monthly newsletter, PDF downloads of major planning reports, tourist maps, and building permit data. The city’s collection of “demographic maps”:http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/census/maps.htm also answer plenty of unusual (but good) questions, like where McMansions or apartments are being built, who voted how on municipal propositions, how fast taxes are rising, and where immigrants, single mothers, voters, and the educated live.

[posted to pro-urb, about inclusionary density bonuses]

“isn’t it the case that pro formas often start to look a whole lot sweeter when one can find ways to add units to the project?”

Not necessarily. As I understand it (having talked pretty extensively with developers as part of a process examining inclusionary requirements here), the increased economies of scale gained from higher density fall apart once you approach/cross certain thresholds — the incremental increase in housing units may not result in a sufficient increment in profit.

One developer claimed that on one project, a doubling of FAR was still insufficient to offset a 20% inclusionary requirement. The neighborhood had a strict height limit, and packing additional bulk below that line was neither possible nor desirable. Other de facto limits occur elsewhere: single family houses are indeed more profitable than townhouses; high-rises run into various engineering problems as they cross certain heights.

Additionally, construction costs per unit are much higher at higher densities, so the “free land” granted by the density bonus is worth less as a percentage of the total unit cost; and the usual trick of building smaller, uglier “affordable” houses doesn’t work when the “market” houses are 400 sq. ft. studio apartments.

That same developer, though, thought that relief from parking requirements *would* be an effective way of mitigating the cost of high-density inclusionary units. Meanwhile, a payment in lieu fee has proven quite popular with high-rise developers, which might indicate that it’s underpriced.

Other blogs give you movie reviews. This one reviews zoning codes every once in a while; here, Chicago (“synopsis”:http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webportal/COCWebPortal/COC_ATTACH/zoningcode_highlights.html | “full text”:http://w14.cityofchicago.org:8080/zoning/default.jsp), as posted to pro-urb.

1. Urbanism: good. Nothing groundbreaking, but even the 1957 ordinance wasn’t bad. The new, finer grain of residential districts, required rear open space, contextual (averaged) front setbacks, new building envelope specifications, and Pedestrian Street designation have all worked very well. Some difficult sites (like acute-angle “flatirons”) are now once again developable.

However, nothing can stop cut-rate construction con artists from making a buck off a housing bubble; enforcement of building and zoning codes alike has been a problem, including brazen violation of height limits, shearing off of promised ornament, and parking garage bloat. Law enforcement, as you might have heard, has never been among Chicago’s strengths.

(Question: how well have urban pattern books fared, given today’s shoddy standards? I liked the “Norfolk pattern book”:http://www.norfolk.gov/Planning/comehome/Norfolk_Pattern_Book/residents.html, and I’m aware of the Prince’s Foundation work in teaching craftsmen, but even our prized, design-guidelined historic districts get the same schlock as anywhere else. I can’t imagine that a mere pattern book would’ve stopped the developers of “this”:http://flickr.com/photos/tags/ugliestbuildingever.)

2. Simplicity: fair. Not having to deal with those endless pages of uses makes a difference, as do the illustrations, but honestly the old code was pretty straightforward. Several new practices were introduced that create some basic level of design review, including “type 1 rezonings” (attach a site plan) and the lower PUD thresholds.

3. Process: poor. The alderman still zones however’s best for his campaign fund (e.g., pro-developer or pro-NIMBY), context and best practices be damned. Of course, the code could not have changed this. We also have absolutely no tradition of forward planning here; stuff just happens, and as a result transit routes traverse dying industrial and overpriced single-family areas while developers go wild with high-rises a mile away.

Having some rather intransigent aldermen on the drafting committee did not help [the principal authors’] job any. Farr & Associates wrote the pedestrian streets language and contributed elsewhere.

bq. _Dennis McClendon_: The bonus for green roofs must be particularly cost-effective, because every developer now claims it. Personally I’m dubious about the effectiveness of these little squares of chia pet

My favorite still remains the acre of sod atop a west-side home-improvement big box, adjacent to the 10-acre asphalt slab. Yep, that’ll show ’em.

The necessary corollary to Don Shoup’s Parking Benefit District is such a district that works where there’s already metered parking and a BID/SSA in place: the “Parking Increment Finance” district.

How might this work for the new Wicker Park-Bucktown SSA ? (Assumptions below.) Currently, several blocks near “the crotch” at Milwaukee, North, and Damen are metered 8AM – 9PM, six days a week, at a piddling 25¢ per hour. (Valet services find willing customers at $9 + tip.) First of all, raise rates to 50¢ an hour; no one will even notice, and revenues will double — give that to the city in return for new meters, more meter maids (police presence!), whatever. Extend existing Monday-Saturday meters from 9PM to midnight (at a “premium,” but still cheap rate of $1 an hour) and add Sundays; result: just the _two blocks_ nearest “the crotch” would capture an astonishing $486,720. (Edit: That doesn’t even count the incremental revenue from extending meters from _one_ block out to two, which should be done posthaste.)

Adding one new mile of parking meters at a modest price of 50¢ an hour would yield $578,160 in a year. Combined, the two proposals would raise over $1 million a year from just the most congested area, dwarfing the $664,496 budget that the SSA will raise from taxing over six miles of streets.

To prevent spillover, permit parking would have to be extended to more side streets. Evening-only (6 PM – 6 AM) permitted parking should provide plenty of parking for residents and for daytime businesses like offices and lunchtime restaurants. The SSA could even broker the resale of side-street permits from residents to businesses, who could use them for employee parking — thus keeping drunk customers off side streets, and providing an incentive for car-free or car-light residents. All of this would require amending the ordinance, but the potential revenues make it well worthwhile — especially once PBD pilots (potentially in Hyde Park and Logan Square) get underway.

(Speaking of parking permits, why are they only $25 a year? That’s renting prime [by definition!] city land — in many of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, and to drivers, who are wealthier than the city average — for 27.7¢ per square foot per year, half a cent a week. By comparison, take Lake View, where parking spots go for $30 _per game_ [$660 just for three weeks of night games a year!] and retail rents right next to that permitted parking for $40 a foot, triple net; in Rogers Park, where Loyola charges $446 a year for resident parking; and in Hyde Park, where the University of Chicago rents spaces for $360+ a year. Off-street outdoor parking here in Bucktown goes for $75/month, or $900/year. Looks like parking rates could go up tenfold and still substantially undercut the market price.)

My lowball assumptions: 30 x 15′ parking spaces per 660′ block face plus three parking spaces available around each side street corner (on side street, but just off main streets and within SSA property boundaries), totaling 33 spaces per block face or 528 per mile. Each full day for new meters assumes six occupied hours (out of 16 metered hours, a mere 37.5% occupancy rate) at an average of 50¢ per hour, or $1,095 a year. For increment on existing meters: assuming 50% occupancy, $1 per hour for Monday-Saturday night parking (of course, the higher rate could be charged at 6PM, not 9PM) and 50¢ per hour for Sunday, for an increment of $676 a year. This also assumes that spaces blocked for valets will also contribute to the fund at the usual rate. By comparison, in 2001 Old Town Pasadena raised $2,096 per meter; 18% went to collection overhead, including ubiquitous meter maids at all hours.

The sheer number of valet operations in the area makes consolidating their operations into satellite lots quite easy and lucrative. Several big box stores at the fringes (K Mart, Aldi, Kohl’s) and some church facilities (St. Mary’s, Holy Family, St. Mary’s and St. Elizabeth’s hospitals) have enormous lots that are empty during the dinner rush, just perfect for storing valet-ed cars.