Team Culture hopes to revitalize downtown using the arts — perhaps by having concerts on a floating barge atop the Chicago River.
Rendering courtesy of Lou Raizin
About two decades after Millennium Park opened, it’s time for downtown’s “next big thing,” says an organization of civic, business and networking leaders.
The organization, which calls itself “Team Culture,” wants to reinvent vital parts of the city center by filling empty, dark spaces with light and art.
“There have been two things in recent history that have replaced downtown. One was the Theater District and the other was Millennium Park. It’s time for culture to start again,” said Lou Raizin, president and CEO of Broadway in Chicago. a luncheon Tuesday at the City Club of Chicago at Maggiano’s Banquets downtown.
He cited the prospect of “enormous economic opportunity,” noting that New York’s economy generates about $35 billion a year and supports about 300,000 jobs.
Raizin and his supporters plan to expand the use of existing spaces in the city, such as turning a barge on the Chicago River into a concert hall or a farmers’ market. (Baroque music conducted a sold-out concert last summer from a boat along the river. )
In this rendering, a floating farmers market would make stops along the Chicago River on other days of the week, according to the new Team Culture.
Courtesy of Lou Raizin
And they believe they find art in unexpected places, like certain alleys in Chicago. A similar task in Detroit has created one of the “must-see” cultural things for Motor City visitors, Raizin said.
What if Lower Wacker Drive could be redeveloped into a venue for an “urban festival”? Or what if art illuminated the dark underground hallways of the Chicago Pedway?
“What if at 8 o’clock at night you went to dinner, went to an exhibition, and a segment of the pedestrian walkway was remodeled into a virtual [light] experience? » said Raizín.
What State Street would look like with new art installations, according to Team Culture.
Courtesy of Lou Raizin
There were more questions than answers on Tuesday about Raizin and his potential collaborators where the cash would come from to finance the projects.
“We are talking to a number of people,” Raizin said after the presentation, declining to mention names. “We are very close.”
“It’s as much about letting the government get out of the way and the constraints as it is about what we’re asking the government to do for us,” said Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson, who is part of Team Culture.
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