Allen Richards' Blog: One Bennett Park Removes Park and Gets to Digging

Weep not for the trees; they’ll be back, and much better, when Bennett Park is complete.

Within two weeks of hearing work crews would be fencing off access to the park bounded by Grand Avenue, Peshtigo Court, Illinois Street, and McClurg Court in Streeterville, trees have been removed and ground is being torn up in preparation for One Bennett Park.

Bennett Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh (Courtesy of Related Midwest)

At the east of the lot, what used to be the fenced-in dog run has become Ground Zero for earth movers tearing at the earth for Robert A.M. Stern’s forthcoming 843-foot-tall tower at 451 East Grand Avenue. That’s a substantial head start for a project no one seems to have found permits for yet, but that’s okay. Chicago has earned a tower of this magnitude and design, so we won’t sweat that sort of minutiae.

The rest of the space not taken up by residential tower will comprise Bennett Park, the 1.7-acre area being re-imagined by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. That’s the reason the entire block has to be cordoned off, and all the tress had to be removed. Expect park and palace to be complete in 2019.