Access to a pedestrian bench located near the northwest corner of South Cornell Drive and East Hayes Drive has been cut off by a chain-link fence that was erected recently, sometime before Sunday, July 29, when the photo was taken. The fence was erected around the Jackson Park baseball fields that lie between East Hayes Drive, South Cornell Drive and South Stony Island Avenue south of the 6200 South across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School, 6220 S. Stony Island Ave., presumably to allow construction of the new track and field oval proposed by the Obama Foundation and the Chicago Park District to replace the one just to the north in Jackson Park that is on the site of the Obama Presidential Center. – Marc Monaghan
By AARON GETTINGER
Staff Writer
The Chicago Park District set up a chain-link fence in Jackson Park over the weekend, running from the 6200 South block, along Hayes and Cornell drives and Stony Island Avenue, as construction begins on the track and field that will replace the one that currently occupies the space where the Obama Presidential Center is to be built, according to an Obama Foundation spokeswoman.
The Park District said construction is expected to continue into the early fall.
A rotary drilling rig sits parked near the north east corner of the Jackson Park track and field that currently is on the site of the proposed Obama Presidential Center, Sunday, July 29. – Marc Monaghan
Ground breaking on the Obama Presidential Center is scheduled for 2019, according to the Obama Foundation.
This story is in development and will be updated in print and online.
Photographer Marc Monaghan contributed to this news brief.
Aaron: We met briefly at thge CPD meeting in April where I made some comments about the proposed changes to the JP/SS golf courses. Since then the Herald also published a letter of mine on the same issue. It was sometime last month.
Reading today that Protect our Parks as filed a lawsuit contesting the entire OPC project I wonder if the CPD has acted hastily, and without local input in doing this. This calls to mind a story that the Tribune ran recently where the CPD began placing water parks off the lake without consulting the neighborhoods. After Eric Zorn wrote an editorial about it the CPD abandoned the project. Are we seeing the dame dynamic here?
I don’t know if the new track and field was planned before the OPC plans were made public, but if they were not, then is the CPD acting in anticipation of an event that has not been approved through federal agencies and is not facing a lawsuit, In the meantime are the people who used the old baseball fields being denied use of it? Is this right?
Thanks
Bill Daniels
August 3, 2018 @ 10:32 am
Aaron: We met briefly at thge CPD meeting in April where I made some comments about the proposed changes to the JP/SS golf courses. Since then the Herald also published a letter of mine on the same issue. It was sometime last month.
Reading today that Protect our Parks as filed a lawsuit contesting the entire OPC project I wonder if the CPD has acted hastily, and without local input in doing this. This calls to mind a story that the Tribune ran recently where the CPD began placing water parks off the lake without consulting the neighborhoods. After Eric Zorn wrote an editorial about it the CPD abandoned the project. Are we seeing the dame dynamic here?
I don’t know if the new track and field was planned before the OPC plans were made public, but if they were not, then is the CPD acting in anticipation of an event that has not been approved through federal agencies and is not facing a lawsuit, In the meantime are the people who used the old baseball fields being denied use of it? Is this right?
Thanks
Bill Daniels