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 The Illinois center stretches north along Michigan Avenue from Randolph Street to the Chicago River and east between those boundaries all the way to Lake Shore Drive. Demonstrating once more the validity of the expression, “necessity is the mother of invention,” the idea for Illinois Center emerged when the area’s primary function as a transportation center basically disintegrated. But that’s getting ahead of the story. In the mid 19th century, what was to become Illinois Center was originally part of Lake Michigan. The federal government gave the land to the Illinois Central Railroad if they would run a railroad line from the Great Lakes to the Port of New Orleans. The route that the IC selected ran along the Lake Michigan shoreline at a point that today can best be described as Columbus Drive. The original track was on a trestle just off the shoreline and it was intended to connect to the busy transshipment port that was to be created at the mouth of the Chicago River. The steady growth of Chicago triggered the demand for expansion of the existing port to serve expanding commerce. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was responsible for the next great transformation of the harbor that would one day become, in part, Lakeshore East. Following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 city fathers designated the area between the existing trestle and the shoreline as a depository for fire debris. With additional landfill the area was transformed into a port capable of receiving agriculture and mineral products of the upper Midwest for shipment down the Mississippi to New Orleans and on to foreign markets. Among those products arriving by boat at the port of Chicago were iron ore from Minnesota, forest products, paper and grain from Canada. The north portion of that landfill was an 83-acre parcel that became the Illinois Central’s major freight yard and terminus and for decades the land that would eventually become Illinois Center and Lakeshore East was utilized as a commercial center, transporting cargo from ships in the harbor to trains to businesses in the steadily expanding business district we now call the Loop. The southwestern portion of that landfill evolved into Chicago’s magnificent downtown lakefront, including Grant Park, the Art Institute and to the south – what we and millions of visitors now know as the Museum Campus – the Field Museum of Natural History, Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. With the advent of the internal combustion engine and a national highway system that was started in the early 1900s, producers of the vast mineral and agricultural wealth found other means of getting there their products to market. By 1920 the writing was on the wall and lake steamer traffic started to decline. It was at this time that the port was filled in and transshipping operations were halted. By the 1950s all that remained of railroad operations on the site was a freight yard and passenger car storage facility. Even those uses were terminated in the late 1950s and the owners of the land started to look for other uses. The railroad brought in partners to develop Illinois center. The first plans were submitted to the city in the 1960s. At that time the parcel consisted of 83 acres. The emphasis of the development was to be office buildings beginning at the west end of the site working eastward, with a few residential buildings facing the lake at the east end of the site. A building boom began to fill Illinois Center with millions of feet of office space, shops, and thousands of hotel rooms. There were four residential structure built at the southeast corner of the site Developers of office properties realized in the 1980s that major office tenants wanted to be located in the West Loop. Consequently, the demand for office space at Illinois Center waned. At that point, the Illinois Center neighborhood was improved with nine office towers, including the Aon Center, Prudential Towers I and II, the Fairmont Hotel, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the Swiss Grand Hotel for a total of nearly 3,400 hotel rooms and a residential component consisting of Outer Drive East, Columbus Plaza, Harbor Point, Buckingham Plaza, North Harbor Tower and the Park Shore that brought a total of approximately 3,600 residences to the area. The remaining portion of the 83-acre property consisting of 28 acres became known as Lakeshore East. As our residents, friends and neighbors also know, Lakeshore East is situated within strolling distance of one of the nation’s most prestigious retail districts, The Magnificent Mile. Ranging from the Chicago River to Oak Street on the north, this north Michigan Avenue corridor is distinguished by an upscale image and retail orientation that includes specialty retail shops, art galleries, department stores and office buildings. Major developments and land uses closer to our little corner of the world, which is bounded by East Wacker Drive, North Lake Shore Drive. East Randolph Drive and North Columbus Drive, include Bicentennial Park, Millennium Park and Grant Park to the south; Lake Michigan to the east; Navy Pier to the northeast; and the Chicago Harbor to the northeast. Bordering our village on the south is Grant Park and the recently constructed Millennium Park with its fabulous music pavilion, fountains and green areas. Along Columbus Drive to the west are high-rise office building, a fire station and hotels. |
