Interesting, organic rooftop gardening is a much better way to spend ones day rather than begging for change on the Wells Street bridge.
Pacific Gardens leaders hope to begin building the new mission this summer. The Chicago Plan Commission approved rezoning the site at 527 W. 14th Pl. from manufacturing use to commercial use in late February. City Council approval is expected in April.Designed by Stanley Tigerman of Chicago-based Tigerman McCurry Architects, several of the nearly 1,000-bed building's green technology features set it apart from other missions for homeless people throughout the nation. “I think people other than the homeless will come to see this building for its design,” said Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) told fellow plan commissioners.
Tigerman, who discounted his services to design the building, according to Phillip Snelling one of a team of attorneys representing the Pacific Gardens Mission on the project, is particularly interested in applying architectural design to solving social problems.
“It is not just housing for homeless people, it is housing designed to reintegrate them back into society, with green elements that will be uplifting for people on the bottom of the rungs of society,” Snelling said in an interview last week. He estimates the building will cost about $27 million.
An atrium at the center of the 135,000-square-foot building will infuse light and boost air circulation and provide an internal landscaped respite for the homeless who stay at the mission during summer months, according to David McCarrell, president of the Pacific Gardens Mission.
A 24,000-square-foot, two-tiered, rooftop greenhouse where the mission's kitchen will get its organic vegetables is a particular highlight of the new building. “We will grow organic vegetables to be used in our kitchens, and possibly whatever we don't use could be sold,” McCarrell said in an interview last week. “But the big thing is that homeless people who want to can work in that greenhouse, can use their hands and learn how things grow. We will have people up there that know something about [growing organic vegetables].”
A 10,000-square-foot rooftop photovoltaic cell unit will provide the building's heated water. A chapel, medical clinic, 640-seat auditorium, kitchen, and 620-seat dining facility will be on the ground level.
