Zoning code encourages development of Chicago Landmarks by Cora Saddler & Suzanne Hanney
A density bonus incentive for downtown developers is leveraging preservation of landmarks in neighborhoods across Chicago. According to the Chicago zoning code updated in 2016, downtown developers pay into a fund to receive greater floor area ratio (FAR). The resulting Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus encourages commercial development in neighborhoods lacking private investment. Priority is given to landmarks whose exterior renovation is visible from the street and whose interiors are accessible to the public. These are buildings that can become neighborhood anchors or centers of community life. Holy Trinity Cathedral (see related story page 12) was one of four landmarks awarded $250,000 in 2019, along with On Leong Merchants Association, 2212 S. Wentworth Ave.; Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church (Minnekirken), 2610 N. Kedzie Ave.; and Beverly Unitarian Church, 10244 S. Longwood Drive. Last November, the Greenstone United Methodist Church, 11211 S. St. Lawrence in the historic Pullman neighborhood, was among 12 Adopt-a-Landmark awardees. Its $1.08 million grant will go a long way towards a restoration that could cost up to $2.4 million, said the Rev. Luther Mason, pastor, in a telephone interview. The Greenstone Church simply completed the picture of perfection that George Pullman had for his namesake model industrial town of the 1880s, 12 miles south of downtown Chicago, Mason said. In addition to brick townhouses for the workers at his company, which built railroad sleeping cars for 19th century transcontinental travel, there was an arcade building, a market hall, a hotel – but no saloons. Built in 1882, the church has a façade of green serpentine stone quarried in Pennsylvania, its original cherry wood altar and pews, 90 percent of its stained-glass windows and its manual tracker organ – one of the few in the United States. But in all its 140 years, the porous serpentine stone has been a problem, Mason said. Where the stone was improperly placed, it has worn down to the church’s underlying brick structure. Acid rain from nearby steel mills compounded the erosion. The church’s 92-foot bell tower has been stabilized and its roof replaced, thanks to American Express, the United Methodist Church and the Landmarks Illinois Timuel D. Black Jr. Grant Fund for Chicago’s South Side. The roof came in $20,000 under budget, said Mason, who has a background in construction management. Twenty church members – most of them on fixed income – have committed to raising $1,000 each. Mason is also optimistic about two other six-figure grants. “Folks that don’t get it think it’s about the stained glass and pipe organs,” Mason said. “It is and it isn’t. When you restore the building, you restore relationships.” Since President Barack Obama named the diverse Pullman a National Monument in February 2015, “There is something about this little town that Pullman built, that history, that is still alive. It’s an amazing time to live in Pullman,” Mason said. Obama cited the town’s labor history in his dedication speech. During a recession in winter 1893-94, Pullman cut wages—but not rents— in the town. When a union grievance committee visited him, he retaliated by firing them. The union went on strike the next day and tied up railroad traffic across the nation until the federal government intervened on behalf of the company.
The beautiful Greenstone United Methodist Church in process of restoration (photos courtesy of the church).
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