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Central Area Plan
Planning goals and projections for the city's central area
The Central Area Plan is a guide for continued economic success, physical growth, and environmental sustainability for the coming decades. The city released a draft of the plan last July, then held many public hearings to get community feedback. The planning department now intends to seek approval of the updated version of the plan from the Chicago Plan Commission on June 12, 2003.
It is the first plan for downtown produced by the City since 1958. Together with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Zoning Reform effort, these two complementary initiatives will provide the blueprints for Chicago’s expansion and growth well into the 21st Century.
“This plan is driven by a vision of Chicago as a global city, the ‘downtown of the Midwest,’ the heart of Chicagoland, and the ‘greenest’ city in the country,” said DPD Commissioner Alicia Berg. “This is no little plan. This is a plan for urban greatness.”
Initiated by Mayor Daley, the plan is the City’s response to the transformation of downtown Chicago over the last 20 years. It details the Central Area’s potential for growth over the next two decades.
The Central Area Plan is the product of a broad group of dedicated Chicago elected officials, government, business and civic leaders who worked together to create a responsive and visionary plan.
The Central Area Plan makes several key recommendations:
- Expand the Loop’s high-density office core into the West Loop near the Chicago River, transit stations and Kennedy Expressway.
- Re-organize higher density development outside the Loop so that it is focused on major corridors where transit can be provided and the centers of new urban neighborhoods formed.
- Create a new West Loop Transportation Center below Clinton Street, including an exclusive busway, a CTA subway, commuter and inter-city rail.
- Complete the development of the Chicago River Corridor throughout the Central Area with a continuous riverwalk and riverside parks.
As the plan is enacted over the next twenty years, downtown Chicago’s economic engine would be strengthened, it’s parks and open spaces would be expanded, and its rapid transit and roadway systems would be extended and improved.
Download PDF files by chapter below: (To reduce file size and facilitate downloading of the Central Area Plan, chapters were divided into smaller sections. Several sections are still relatively large for certain computer systems.)
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