Unless there is something in the zoning that says everything constructed along Harlem Avenue must be hideous and monstrous, then we’d have to agree with Oak Park’s Plan Commission: The proposed mixed-use development at Harlem and South Boulevard is butt-ugly.
This is a massive project on an unmassive site. It stretches across a group of parcels assembled by the village more than a decade back. It starts at the lot line on Harlem and marches east across Maple Avenue and nearly to Marion Street. With 263 apartment units, a parking garage on lower floors and some requisite retail, this is a lot of living and dying, commuting and shopping in a squat 12 stories.
And the outer shell is so bleak, particularly the southern exposure, that it begs comparison with the concrete-clad Pravda-esque Whiteco building a few blocks north on Harlem. One never wants to be compared with Whiteco (aka Oak Park Apartments).
At its meeting last week, the Plan Commission, which is normally looking for a way forward, was clearly looking for the brakes. Commission members and the paid architectural consultant the village has added to these proceedings to offer early input to developers and avoid design train wrecks seemed to feel disrespected. The group had admonished the developers for its insipid but overwhelming efforts a few months back and clearly they expected something more than rearranging some balconies and building materials.
There was talk of rethinking the project, reopening the Request for Proposals that set specific expectations and limits, such as height. The developer was made queasy by such talk but better that they have an upset tummy in the short term than the rest of us having to look at this fortress until our deaths.
Some commissioners said it looked like a hospital or similar institution; we’d go so far as to say it reminds us of a public housing project Richard M. Daley would have signed off on in 1957.
This is an odd site. Hard by the railroad embankment to the north. Stuck at the clogged-up point where Harlem collides with the viaduct. There will never be majestic vistas here. But plopping 12 stories of sub-ordinary cannot be allowed.
Here’s our non-architects’ viewpoint. Go higher. The village is on a bit of a height binge in downtown right now. The difference between two and three high-rises is not important. A graceful 18 stories with some setbacks could take the least appealing buildable site in the downtown area and provide us with something to look up to and not speed past.