Millennium Park: A Model for Successful Urban Green Space Redevelopment Nick Groos Matt Dages December 3rd, 2008 As long as urban spaces have existed, planners and city officials have strived to fluidly incorporate usable green space into dense cities. Often times, parks and public green space redevelopments are fraught with conflict and over-expenditure creating massive financial losses, unsustainable space and little benefit to the people of the target area. Downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park Redevelopment, however, is widely considered a tremendous success by planners, economists, environmentalists, and other pundits ranging from art history to real estate. Booming tourism, large scale real estate value escalation and huge tax base increases to the city have characterized the park’s beneficial impact, all within the framework of green energy and sustainable design. The massive success of this project did not come easily, and its creators faced significant impasses in the planning, design and construction phases of the project. The people responsible for the creation of Millennium Park overcame these myriad problems through maximizing community input and support, utilizing creative financing methods, capitalizing on public private partnerships and overcoming political conflicts through dedicated, highly motivated leaders selected to work within the complicated Chicago political environment. Since Chicago’s earliest days, the area bordered by Lake Shore Drive on the east, Randolph Street to the north, Michigan Avenue on the west and Roosevelt to the south was kept free of real buildings. Originally a squatter area and refuse dump with traintracks running adjacent to the park, Lake Park was an unsightly, unpleasant area. As Lake Park grew due to landfill, the adjacent Illinois Central Railroad tracks became part of the central area of the park. The decrepit state of the most central area of the thriving city began to frustrate many of the city’s elite. Thus, in 1890, A. Montgomery Ward, one of the city’s most powerful residents, brought suit against the city of Chicago demanding that they clean up the park and remove the structures that had been erected throughout (Encyclopedia of Chicago). In response, the city of Chicago hired the Olmstead brothers to design a space that would be designated as “public ground. Forever to remain vacant of buildings" (Chicago Park District). The primary concern of planners at this point was how to relocate the railroad to keep the park free of structures. As railroads were a major reason for Chicago’s economic success at the time, it was not politically possible to force the Illinois Central to completely remove and relocate the ideally placed rail yard (Chicago Park District). Therefore, the city moved the massive rail yard below-grade to the northwest corner of the area in order to remove the unsightly tracks and trains from the newly designated green space, while maintaining its commercial usefulness. This corner of the park remained untouched until 1998 when the Millennium Park project was begun. Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, and his staff hoped to transform the train yard in the northwest corner of the park into a massive green space with unique art installations, gardens and entertainment venues in order to realize the economic potential of the heart of downtown Chicago. The Millennium Park Project was conceived as a massive below-grade parking structure laid upon the pre-existing rail-yard, covered with a 24.5 acre green roof park with uniquely integrated civic entertainment installations. Bymaking the park more than simply open space, Daley and his staff felt that the park would encourage a variety of city residents to visit the park. Also, the art and music of the park could attract a much higher tourist population than simply open space. This vision of a unique, groundbreaking, green economic development project was realized in the Millennium Park Project and has had major benefits to the city and its residents. Due to Millennium Park’s location adjacent to Chicago’s lakeshore, it puts the park in a unique position. Here the city had an opportunity to take a derelict piece of land, previously unsuitable for public recreation, and turn it into an easily accessible public gathering place. This was achieved all while constructing a landmark of sustainable development. This notable status among sustainable planning is derived from numerous criteria, but most directly in its incorporation of environmentally friendly technology. Certainly the most apparent of these technologies is the park’s residence on the world’s largest green roof. This not only disguises the underlying parking garage, but it also provides an environmental respite to the urban sprawl of downtown Chicago. This parking garage obviously accommodates cars, but also features a designated area for bicycles. Although this is indirect support for a less car-dictated Chicago, the gesture towards sustainability is evident. Millennium Park also utilizes renewable energy sources into its design. Solar panels lining the development provide 16000 kW hours of power to the entrance of the park. This generates enough electricity to power most of the lights in the park as well as the parking garage. Below the park, the parking garage design incorporates a process known as “passive solar heating.” Here, solar radiation is captured through optical properties in the walls of the structure. This harnessed radiation is used as a convective heat source to theunderground construction. This is considered a revolutionary technique at multiple levels. Firstly, the technology is an innovative yet subtle contribution to the park’s sustainability. Passive solar heat is not a revolutionary technology, but the use of it on a scale as large as Millennium Park surely is. By utilizing this less significant energy source, the designers of Millennium Park are proving by example that small environmental considerations can be extrapolated onto much larger undertakings. In addition to these technologies, a key element of Millennium Park’s success is found in the manner these technologies are incorporated. Recently, common movements to “green” a building involved simply adding environmentally focused technologies to an existing design. Relative to the aggregate impact of these buildings, installing a solar panel system, for example, is often