Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Compare and Contrast...












Now that the new Aldi has had its official unveiling, we thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the new Aldi with the official rendering shown to the public (click photos for larger view). Comments, anyone?

We also added a rendering of the Jewel-Osco opening up on Southport (formerly part of the 46th Ward). Notice any differences?


13 comments:

  1. Forget about the Target store for a second. What happened to the glass entrance.

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  2. Welcome Craig,
    According to our Alderman's office, that was never intended to be an entrance. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we are now told that was to be an art-filled atrium. Although in the pic, you can clearly see people walking toward the door with their hand extended to OPEN the door. The Aldi we have now is obviously Aldi v3.0

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  3. Craig,
    There are the original trees that were on Broadway to begin with. I believe you can see them in the original Aldi post with the "landscaping."

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  4. I gotta be honest: I don't see too much of a difference. What am I missing besides the lack of front door and trees (which, I'm hoping, might be put in after construction?)

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  5. Besides the lack of a "walkable" street scene the next biggest issue is people traffic into and outta da store. This ain't some suburban Aldi where everyone drives.

    There should have been a one way entrance on Broadway where people could enter and not exit the store.
    The the current entrance could have been used strictly as an exit.

    As it is now pedestrians entering and leaving the store with their carts and purchases are confined to one relatively narrow stretch of sidewalk.

    Pure genius.

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  6. I spoke with a couple of urban planning students from UIC and they were aghast that a design could be so alienating to foot traffic. When the public saw the original design, we just assumed from the drawing that the entrance would be located facing N. Broadway rather than in the back of the store. I don't think I have ever come across an entrance to a store being located in the back before.

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  7. Excellent, now we have a new Aldi's that has no windows to Broadway and an entrance only in the rear. Great job planning this one! I guess they assume that the crime will be so horrible here that they can't allow windows into the building or an entrance from the street.

    This is terrible, what a waste of money.

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  8. We're going to work on getting some more pics of the new Aldi today from across the street and so on. We also noticed that the new area for the landscaping only allows for a small sliver of sidewalk along the wall of the building. We will try and get a pic of that also.

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  9. I haven't mentioned this earlier, I'll do it now. Thank you guys for providing a documented progression of the Uptown area from a independent point of view. While I may not live there anymore, I still enjoying keeping up with the neighborhood.

    Good luck with the site.

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  10. Craig-
    Keep up the good work as well. We enjoy reading your blog and were happy to link to it on "The Uptown Update." Come back anytime.

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  11. I'm still convinced that the entrance was moved to the back (as the renderings clearly show people entering from Broadway, as has been noted many times before) in order to keep the primary entrance well beyond 100 feet from the Salvation Army (the Big Chicks legislation). The odd angle to the street also makes more sense if you're trying to keep the wall of the building away from the corner of the SA building.

    My assumption at this point is:

    a) The building was originally designed to stay away from the SA (meaning the liquor license deal has been in play for a few years now).
    b) At some point during the execution, they decided that the Broadway entrance was still too close and moved it to the back.

    I'm assuming that there were originally two entrances - pedestrian and auto. I concede that b) may have been simply that they couldn't figure out the logistics/traffic flow of people exiting, parking and carts.

    Hal Shipman

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  12. Has anyone tried to ask the question as to why and when this change was made via a FOIA request?

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