Lost Landmark
I'm not always the sort of person who bemoans urban change and redevelopment, but it has to be said that the destruction of Chicago's industrial heritage at the hands of developers- especially in the mushrooming West Loop and Near West Side, and especially over the course of the last decade- has been intense and wanton.
Granted, many of the meatpacking concerns and wholesale warehouses the area used to be known for have been adaptively reused in their new roles as tech offices, (Google's Chicago headquarters in the old Fulton Market Cold Storage warehouse is a good example of this) high-end restaurants and bars, co-working spaces, condos and the like, but not all are recognizable after their transformations, and the ADM mill complex at Racine Avenue, long a landmark on the Near West Side, has not even been lucky enough to undergo such renovation.
The first parts of the complex originally opened as the Eckhart & Swan Milling Company in 1897- the "ghost" of the original company name could still be seen in very faded paint on the top floor of the first building until demolition began. The grain elevators were built in 1927 and expanded in 1948. After a few corporate restructurings over the years, Archer Daniels Midland took over the mill in 1990, and operated it until the combination of the opening of a new complex downstate in Mendota, coupled with the rising real estate value of the area, caused ADM to seek to divest itself of the mill. The property was sold to development company Sterling Bay (who has been behind the redevelopment of much of the West Loop, and is also the owner and developer of the Lincoln Yards project) in 2018. Demolition of the historic mill complex began in February, and doesn't appear to be sparing anything.
Sterling Bay had initially talked about constructing a new Metra station on the site to serve their new development, but this idea seems to have floundered. Rideshare cars, Teslas, bikes and scooters will soon replace the grain trucks that swarmed around the facility- and the Norfolk Southern freight job that was the the raison d'etre of the last active section of the Pennsylvania Railroad "Panhandle" line in the area has since departed. At least the heavy Metra and Amtrak traffic will still pass the site of one of the last heavy industries on Chicago's near West Side.
Lost Landmark
I'm not always the sort of person who bemoans urban change and redevelopment, but it has to be said that the destruction of Chicago's industrial heritage at the hands of developers- especially in the mushrooming West Loop and Near West Side, and especially over the course of the last decade- has been intense and wanton.
Granted, many of the meatpacking concerns and wholesale warehouses the area used to be known for have been adaptively reused in their new roles as tech offices, (Google's Chicago headquarters in the old Fulton Market Cold Storage warehouse is a good example of this) high-end restaurants and bars, co-working spaces, condos and the like, but not all are recognizable after their transformations, and the ADM mill complex at Racine Avenue, long a landmark on the Near West Side, has not even been lucky enough to undergo such renovation.
The first parts of the complex originally opened as the Eckhart & Swan Milling Company in 1897- the "ghost" of the original company name could still be seen in very faded paint on the top floor of the first building until demolition began. The grain elevators were built in 1927 and expanded in 1948. After a few corporate restructurings over the years, Archer Daniels Midland took over the mill in 1990, and operated it until the combination of the opening of a new complex downstate in Mendota, coupled with the rising real estate value of the area, caused ADM to seek to divest itself of the mill. The property was sold to development company Sterling Bay (who has been behind the redevelopment of much of the West Loop, and is also the owner and developer of the Lincoln Yards project) in 2018. Demolition of the historic mill complex began in February, and doesn't appear to be sparing anything.
Sterling Bay had initially talked about constructing a new Metra station on the site to serve their new development, but this idea seems to have floundered. Rideshare cars, Teslas, bikes and scooters will soon replace the grain trucks that swarmed around the facility- and the Norfolk Southern freight job that was the the raison d'etre of the last active section of the Pennsylvania Railroad "Panhandle" line in the area has since departed. At least the heavy Metra and Amtrak traffic will still pass the site of one of the last heavy industries on Chicago's near West Side.