Thursday, January 31, 2013

Crain's: "Does This Historic Bank Lobby Have A Future?"


Crain's Chicago Business has a story today about the historic, beautiful Bridgeview Bank lobby and why it's blocked off from the public. Bank Chairman Peter Haleas says that when Bridgeview took over the premises from Uptown National Bank, it found customers hesitant to use the grand lobby, so it built a (sterile, soulless) ground-floor modern lobby and locked away the historical one from everyday use.

Sounds rather unlikely that a short flight of marble stairs (and elevator access) would discourage folks from stepping back 75 years in time to a grander era, but ... that's just us.

In any case, it's a good article and film, which can be found online here.

For more about the lobby, check out Designslinger's visit to the bank last October, during which the photo below -- and several others that are included with the article -- were taken.

8 comments:

  1. thank you very much for including our post on uptown update!

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  2. The retail face of banking has changed...there just isn't a need for the grand spaces of yesterday, especially in economically depressed places like Uptown.

    You also have to wonder how much the space can be retro-fitted for another use without losing the character that makes it special. A restaurant/bar could be really cool in there but the space would lose some of its appeal in the conversion and Uptown is having a hard time not only supporting the mid-level restaurants it already has but filling it's other vacant spaces. In the end, it's probably best left as a pseudo-museum space. However, I do imagine the owner having financial problems with the buildings and really needs the space to be more than that.

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  3. Alek: Don't be so pessimistic. The right kind of restaurant/bar would draw people from outside the neighborhood.

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  4. With all the talk on UU about too many fast food restaurants and '' chicken bones piling up on the streets '' it seems that the '' gentrified '' class in Uptown
    would welcome an '' upscale '' restaurant suitable for the lobby of the Bridgeview Bank. Just sayin'

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  5. @DW, there are other nice (and more appropriate_ spaces in Uptown currently being marketed as restaurant space that haven't had as much as a bite. You add to that the long track record of mid-level restaurants failing or leaving and I think my point is valid. Either way, I don't think restaurant space is realistic or seriously being considered for this space and it will likely sit empty for decades.

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  6. I can't recall the name of the restaurant that used to occupy the lobby space in a building at Sheffield and Belmont...now a Walgreens. Sometime in the 1990's. It was a great re-use of the space! The Uptown Bank lobby space could have a great future with the right vision!

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  7. That lobby was the reason I opened an account there years ago. I was SO disappointed when they built the ground floor.

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  8. Has anyone seen the new Walgreens at North/Damen/Milwaukee? It's an old bank building and a brilliant use of historic spaces. The vault is intact and called the Vitamin Vault. It's a prototype and was just featured on the Today Show.

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