Wicker Park Commons is not just any parking lot.

It's an opportunity to keep Chicago's public spaces hip and green, keeping up with exciting new design directions as in Seattle, Rotterdam and New York City.

We want our aldermen, Moreno and Hopkins, to ensure that developers Centrum Partners, customize their development of Wicker Park Commons so that it reflects our eclectic neighborhood.

We're not interested in boxy, glassy quick and fast development.  We want Chicago to be proud of Wicker Park Commons as one of its most thoughtful adaptive-reuse projects that preserved its community's creativity and spirit while creating new green space and boosting tax revenue.

For its conceptual design, Centrum Partners hired the same architectural firm which creates glassy boxy designs springing up around Wicker Park, even beside the new 606 park.  For the Wicker Park Commons development to have impact on our community, we need to step outside this design approach to create something new.  

There are so many ways to make the most of this space: introducing green public space, adaptive re-use of the Milwaukee-facing brick buildings, vertical LEED design for Jewel-Osco and Lowes joined by an eco parking garage with green walls.

And it's not just better design, it's better business.  Numerous case studies have shown that mixed-use development over big box anchor stores brings in more tax revenue.

Investing in a world-class re-design of Wicker Park Commons will not only connect the neighborhood to the new 606 Park but also finally lead to a much needed rehabilitation of Polonia Triangle.

Wicker Park Commons is an opportunity to work together and create something that rivals Stary Browar in Poznan, Market Hall in Rotterdam, the new Amazon biodomes in Seattle and the headquarters for Urban Outfitters.