UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration (MC 106)
1140 South Paulina Street
Chicago, Illinois 60612-7217

Phone (312) 996-3200 • Fax (312) 413-5204

Stanton Delaney, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Administration
Executive Director—South Campus Development

August 29, 2000

This is in response to your recent letter concerning the University of Illinois at Chicago’s South Campus expansion project.

South Campus will be of tremendous benefit to UIC, Chicago’s largest university with more than 25,000 students, the community, the city and the state we serve. South Campus will include academic buildings, student housing (we have a waiting list of more than 600 students for on-campus apartments), approximately 900 private residential units (in an area where there currently are no residential units), retail shops, parks and parking facilities, along with existing athletics facilities. South Campus will enhance the educational, cultural and social life of the entire campus and area.

While building a strong future for the students and community, the plan connects with the area’s legacy and architecture. Under UIC’s agreement with the City of Chicago, the plan adaptively reuses 21 buildings and facades on Maxwell and Halsted streets. The development also includes the former Maxwell Street police station — the only building in the area listed on the National Register of Historic Places — which UIC nominated for the Register and is renovating. In all, the university is spending more than $20 million on restoration and adaptive reuse.

Over the years, the university has spent many hours in meetings and discussions with the City of Chicago and community members about the project. More than two dozen major community organizations have voiced their support for South Campus, and the project received the unanimous backing of the Chicago City Council.

There is no doubt that some opposition remains from preservationists who feel we have not done enough to retain the old structures and are still seeking to have the entire area designated an “historic district.” But the fact is that the land and buildings that remain today do not meet the criteria for such designation. Two-thirds of the proposed “historic district” is vacant property, and many of the remaining buildings are in dilapidated condition or have been altered through the years.

In 1994, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA) determined that the area lacked the integrity to achieve designation as a national historic landmark. The Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, U.S. Department of the Interior, concluded that “due to an irretrievable loss of historic integrity, the Maxwell Street Market Historic District does not meet the National Register Criteria for Evaluation and thus is not eligible for listing in the National Register.”

As noted above, UIC is spending more than $20 million on adaptive reuse. The university cannot spend still more on restoring buildings deemed of no historic or architectural significance. We have a duty to the taxpayers and to the students, many of whom come from families of modest means and are the first in their families to attend college, to carry out the campus expansion plan in a fiscally responsible manner.

The campus expansion plan connects with the past while pointing the way toward a rich and vibrant future for the community, the city, and, most important, the students.

Sincerely,

Stanton Delaney

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Contact Us

TO REACH US VIA EMAIL:

Chuck Cowdery, President (cowdery@21stcentury.net)
Steve Balkin, Vice President (mar@openair.org)

Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition
P.O. Box 6435
Evanston, IL  60204