Wolf Point Update: Reilly yanks proposal from December Plan Commission agenda; schedules Third Public Meeting

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 In an email to his constituents, 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly announced he has requested the Chicago Plan Commission defer consideration of proposals for the development of Wolf Point from its December agenda.  Instead, he will be calling a third public meeting on the evening of December 20th to review the revised plan.

Since deferring this item from the November Plan Commission Agenda, I have spent the past week meeting with the City of Chicago's planning and infrastructure departments as well as representatives from the River North and Fulton River District neighborhood associations to evaluate the new details recently released by the Developer that call for a hotel use and the potential for additional residential units on the site.

Although Hines/Kennedy have been aggressively lobbying for a process that would allow them to secure all necessary city approvals by the end of 2012, in light of the recent events, I have informed the development team that their preferred timeline is simply no longer feasible. As a result, I have again requested that the Chicago Plan Commission defer this item from its December 20th Agenda, for the purpose of vetting new information related to the Bulk Table for the site and to allow for a much-needed sixth revision to KLOA's traffic study.

Reilly yanked consideration of the three-building project from the November Plan Commission agenda after, as reported by the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky, documents obtained by Friends of Wolf Point uncovered a request for up to 1,800 hotel rooms on the site that had never before been part of the developer's documents or discussions.

Reilly, whose ward includes most of downtown, including Wolf Point, invoked his aldermanic prerogative to request the delay in consideration.  In his Thursday email, Reilly said that in the latest "Bulk Table" defining the developer's request,  the maximum hotel "keys" requested is now down to 450. The maximum allowed construction is now listed at slightly over 4,000,000 square feet, with a maximum of 1,410 residential units and 1,285 new parking spaces.

Reilly said the revised plan submitted by Wolf Point Owners LLC, representing the Hine Interests and the Kennedy family, which owns the land, not only included the previously unmentioned 1,800 hotel rooms, but "did not include the long list of previously negotiated changes and improvements to the proposal" originally submitted in May.

You can read Reilly's complete statement after the break.