WBEZ | Economy

Illinois House committee OKs fracking regulatory bill

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:53:00 -0500

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A proposal that aims to create thousands of jobs in southern Illinois by kick-starting high-volume oil and gas drilling cleared a top committee Tuesday, sending it on to the House floor.

The House Executive Committee voted 11-0 to send the full House a bill meant to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," though it was unclear when the chamber would vote on it.

The measure has been touted by proponents as creating the nation's strictest fracking regulations, although opponents worry the practice could lead to water pollution.

Rep. John Bradley, the Marion Democrat who negotiated the bill with the industry, environmental groups and regulators, labeled the agreement among stakeholders as historic. He said the safety and environmental protections in the bill are unprecedented.

"I live in southern Illinois. I drink the water in southern Illinois. My children drink the water in southern Illinois. My neighbors drink the water in southern Illinois," Bradley told the members of the committee. "Our first and foremost ... effort, intent in everything we did and every negotiation we had, was first and foremost that we are going to protect the ground water in southern Illinois."

Fracking uses high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals to crack rock formations deep underground and release oil and natural gas.

Among the bill's requirements is that companies disclose fracking chemicals and test water before and after drilling. It also holds them liable for contamination.

But critics, who have called for a fracking moratorium, say there is no scientific proof the practice can be done safely. They say it could cause air and water pollution and deplete water resources.

"It's a model for anti-scientific decision making," said Sandra Steingraber, an Illinois native and founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking.

Steingraber, who testified on behalf of the Illinois Coalition for a Moratorium on Fracking, added that the practice "turns communities into industrial zones" and that the state is in such dire economic straits that it will be unable to enforce the regulations spelled out in the proposal.

Among the opponents of the bill who testified Tuesday was Josh Fox, director of the anti-fracking, Oscar-nominated documentary "Gasland."

After lawmakers voted on the regulatory proposal, several of the opponents in the audience yelled "shame, shame."

Energy companies, which already have leased hundreds of thousands of acres in southern Illinois, have been waiting for regulatory certainty before starting to drill. But there also is nothing on the books in Illinois to stop them. Bills to establish a two-year moratorium on the practice have languished in House and Senate committees.

Gov. Pat Quinn has been supportive of the bill throughout the negotiations. After the committee's vote, he said he hopes the bill "swiftly" passes through the General Assembly to "unlock the potential of thousands of jobs."

So, what’s (still) made in the Chicago area?

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:31:00 -0500

Dozens of you have started our Curious City excursions with great questions. Some of those questions were subtle. Others were, um, less so. But few of these questions had an answer turn so much on one word.

Jessica Chronister of Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood asked, “What’s still being manufactured in Chicago in terms of factory-made items?”

We didn’t notice how one word — “still” — could be taken, at least not until it popped up during an interview.

“Well, it’s interesting how you framed the question ‘What’s still being manufactured in the Chicago region,’ ” said Garett Ballard-Rosa, a policy analyst at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. “Manufacturing’s never left the Chicago region.”

Many of us may have assumed that Chicago’s evolved out of the industrial age. But then, there’s counterevidence: The South Side’s Ford plant makes cars; mills in Gary, Indiana, churn out steel; and one factory makes a Chicago neighborhood smell like chocolate brownies.

But these are operations you notice on your own, since they overwhelm your eyes or one of your other senses. (Again, just try forgetting a neighborhood that smells like brownies!)

There is, though, another side to the region’s manufacturing profile. It’s just not so easy to spot.

“Our manufacturing segment is composed of a lot of small and medium size manufacturers,” Ballard-Rosa said.

Ballard-Rosa explained how we stack up; Chicago, he said, is the second-largest manufacturing center in the nation, behind Los Angeles. And, unlike cities such as Detroit and Seattle — where one specific industry makes up more than half of the manufacturing scene — our manufacturers are diverse: We make Lava lamps, lollipops, leather, plastics, martial arts uniforms, trophies, etc.

That is, we make all sorts of things.

But Jessica and I put a face on this smaller side of manufacturing. We started small and then got a little bigger.

First stop: West Side granola

The Milk and Honey brand of granola is made at a West Side industrial kitchen that’s infused with the smell of honey and oats. Owners Carol Watson and Karen Skrainy gave me and producer Logan Jaffe the opportunity to see the making of flavors like Pumpkin Spice, Blueberry Pecan Mix and Rick Bayless’s Mexican Mix.

“It’s not a fancy, highly automated procedure whatsoever,” Skrainy told me. “We do it just like you would at home. In standard-sized sheet pans we mix all the ingredients by hand, bake them in hand, stir them by hand.”

The kitchen is big for Milk and Honey’s 10 workers, but Skrainy and Watson said they hope to expand without having to move locations again. On average, they churn out 330 bags of granola each day.

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Watson started the granola business out of the kitchen of her cafe, which bears the same name. They sold enough of the crunchy stuff that they had to grow into a new location. And more growth turned into yet another move.

Interestingly, Watson doubts expansion will lead them to turn this “mostly by hand” process into an automated one. Instead, she said, they’re likely to just add more hands.

Watson said though they’re small, they can also pull off a national contract with Whole Foods. Milk and Honey’s location helps with that.

“Chicago is centrally located for shipping because if we were on the East Coast or the West Coast. So it works out well for us,” she said.

Coffee (grinders) for the world

Location is key for another small manufacturer that Jessica and I visited together: a midsize firm called Modern Process Equipment, located in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.

If you drink Intelligentsia coffee, or if you ever drank Turkish coffee while in the Middle East, there’s a good chance those coffee beans were ground by an MPE grinder.

Company president Dan Ephraim said MPE ships between 30 and 35 percent of its product overseas.

“We’re the largest coffee grinder manufacturer in the world,” he said. “In the United States, we produce over 90 percent of the coffee grinders for industrial and commercial applications.”

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MPE employs about 100 workers, several of which were on hand to demonstrate their skills to Jessica and me. At one point, we passed by people who operate machines that cut metal with high-pressure streams of water. Others assembled or tested coffee grinding machines that are large enough to put your home or office version to shame.

Unlike the manually-driven processes at Milk and Honey, automation is key at MPE. At one point, we were introduced to a machine that uses lasers to count coffee grounds.

Ephraim and his brother bought the company 30 years ago. Back then the firm concentrated on reconditioning grinders. But the brothers innovated.

“Pretty much all our machines are computer-operated,” Ephraim said. “Anything that is accurate or repetitive, we try to computerize it.”

The future is lean, small

Innovation is something that experts at CMAP mentioned several times, and it’s a point that addresses a myth that Chicago no longer manufactures much.

CMAP’s Simone Weil said we make lots of stuff, but automation has thinned our manufacturing workforce.

“The flip side of that though and the kind of positive shift that we’re seeing the work force, since you need fewer people, they need higher skills,” she said.

CMAP says the region lost manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, but automation wasn’t the only cause.

Weil says we sent manufacturing jobs overseas, and some employers turned full-time employees into part-timers. But she says we’ve recovered a bit, by adding 20,000 manufacturing jobs over the past few years.

She said upping recruitment for these jobs is important in growing the more skilled manufacturing workforce.

Weil’s colleague — Ballard Rosa — says innovation is Chicago’s key to a sustainable manufacturing center.

“The number one thing the region needs to do is re-establish itself as a center of manufacturing research that leads to new commercial products and processes and efficiencies,” he said.

That would make our region more competitive, more vibrant and, maybe — when it comes to manufacturing, anyway — a little more noticeable.

Seamless and GrubHub to combine, no terms revealed

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:01:00 -0500

Seamless North America and GrubHub say they're combining to create an online food ordering service covering more than 20,000 restaurants in 500 cities across the U.S.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Matt Maloney, GrubHub's co-founder and CEO, will become CEO of the combined company. Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as president.

Brian McAndrews, an independent director on the Seamless board, will serve as chairman. Both New York-based Seamless and Chicago-based GrubHub will have significant representation on the new company's board.

The combined company's name and marketing brands will be determined following regulatory approval.

Last year, orders through the two privately-held companies totaled about $875 million, resulting in combined revenue of more than $100 million.

Maloney says the new company will be well positioned for continued growth.

Architect’s Pilsen vision is green and fashion friendly

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:23:00 -0500

Architect Patricia Saldaña Natke grew up on the 4800 block of South Marshfield Avenue, in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Her parents, immigrants from Mexico, worked in the Stockyards.

Some days after school, Saldaña Natke would take the bus away from her aging, blue collar neighborhood with its bungalows and smoke stacks, up to the Loop, and marvel at the sparkling skyscrapers and expansive public parks in the city’s downtown.

“I would look at the beautiful buildings and wonder why those kinds of spaces weren’t in existence where I lived,” Saldaña Natke recalled. “That’s the reason I became an architect; I felt that public places should be the greatest in the area of most need.”

Saldaña Natke channeled those beliefs into UrbanWorks, the architecture and planning firm she founded, which specializes in socially and environmentally conscious planning and design work -- the kind she dreamed about as a kid. She’s set her sights on one Chicago hood in particular: Pilsen.

“[Pilsen] needs to be a place where people can move upward in mobility,” Saldaña Natke said. “The entire core of why I work in Pilsen comes to the fact that there are neighborhoods that need a lot of attention.”

UrbanWorks’ previous Pilsen projects include a college dormitory intended to help keep students from the neighborhood on the path to academic success, a high school designed to resemble the copper canyons of Mexico and Saldaña Natke’s most ambitious project: a master plan for Pilsen.

In architecture and planning circles, a master plan is a grand vision for the future development of a neighborhood.

“It’s much more than a wish list,” Saldaña Natke said. “It may be implemented slightly different than the plan shows, but the core of it should remain intact.”

This plan isn’t funded, but Saldaña Natke is working with 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis and the Department of Housing and Economic Development to assemble funds to inch her vision along.

Saldaña Natke consulted with Pilsen residents in a series of community meetings, including a neighborhood-wide meeting at Providence of God Catholic Church in 2004. The resulting plan aims to build on Pilsen’s assets: its strong Mexican cultural heritage, its main commercial drag zoned for pedestrian use and its historic architecture.

“The community says church steeples are its high rises,” Saldaña Natke said.

The plan calls for greater access to the Chicago River and also addresses what Saldaña Natke says are the neighborhood’s challenges: While the west side of Pilsen is served by the CTA’s Pink, Green and Orange Lines, the east side has few transportation options, leaving the neighborhood disconnected.

And, there is a surprising lack of green space in Pilsen. According to Saldaña Natke, the city requires two acres of green space for every 1,000 Chicago residents.

“But the Park District just said to us that the recommended amount is four acres of green space,” she said. “[Pilsen] is over 18 acres short.”

So, UrbanWorks’ master plan starts there. Saldaña Natke envisions more green space along the neighborhood’s largely industrial waterfront, and the transformation of an abandoned, surface-level railway that runs along Sangamon Street into a stretch of park—something like New York’s High Line or the Northwest Side’s Bloomingdale Trail, only without the elevation. Then, she hopes to transform the abandoned buildings that line the railroad into a fashion and textile incubator.

A fashion incubator?

Yes, Saldaña Natke says.

“You shouldn’t need to go to 900 North Michigan or Michigan Avenue to see all the high-end fashion shows. Why can’t it be in the neighborhoods?”

You can hear Saldaña Natke describe her dream in more detail in the audio above.

Dynamic Range showcases hidden gems unearthed from Chicago Amplified’s vast archive of public events and appears on weekends. Patricia Saldana Natke spoke at an event presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation in April of 2013. Click here to hear the event in its entirety.

Robin Amer is a producer on WBEZ’s digital team. Follow her on Twitter @rsamer.

Chicago to renovate Navy Pier, build arena

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:10:00 -0500

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a multi-million dollar renovation plan Thursday that includes remodeling Navy Pier and building a 10,000-seat basketball arena near McCormick Place that would be the home court of DePaul University's basketball teams.

In a news release on Thursday, Emanuel's office said the first phase of a $278 million project to renovate Navy Pier will begin in the fall and will cost about $166 million. The city will put up $110 of that and private restaurants and the Chicago Children's Museum will put up the rest.

The arena built near McCormick Place also will be used as a hall for conventions and trade shows. McCormick Place and DePaul will each put up $70 million to design and build the arena.

Construction on the arena is targeted to begin in 2014, and officials hope to have it ready in time for the 2016-17 season. The facility likely will be able to host 17 men's basketball and 10 women's games.

The arena could be a boon for a once-proud men's program that has struggled in recent years.

The Blue Demons are coming off their sixth straight losing season and haven't made the NCAA tournament since 2004. They are 30-64 and just 6-48 in Big East play in three years under Oliver Purnell.

But there was a time back when Ray Meyer was the coach and Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings were electrifying fans that the Blue Demans were the most popular basketball team in the city. That also was before Michael Jordan landed with the Bulls.

The DePaul men's team has played most of its games at Allstate Arena in suburban Rosemont, Ill., since 1980, making it difficult for students and fans living and working in the city to attend. The small crowds and older arena probably weren't an easy sell for recruits, either.

Many fans were hoping DePaul would build an arena on or near its main campus in the vibrant Lincoln Park neighborhood, but finding landing in a densely populated area was no small task. The school reportedly turned down an offer from Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to play at the United Center.

The new arena at McCormick Place would be near several major highways and be reachable by train from DePaul's campuses in the city.

Calumet brain trust tackles environmental issues across state line

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:24:00 -0500

Although county lines parcel out the southern shore of Lake Michigan like garden plots, the environmental issues that unify people from Michigan City, Ind. to Chicago do not respect political boundaries.

Nor do most economic issues. Industrial decay and depopulation have left communities throughout the greater Calumet region with some common problems, as well as shared opportunities.

That was the message from the inaugural Calumet Summit, a conference convened this week in Gary, Indiana’s lakefront Marquette Park by the Calumet Stewardship Initiative.

The summit follows some major moves in the Calumet area, not least of which is the Millennium Reserve initiative, dubbed the nation's largest "open space" project. (Although it might better be described as a regional plan that ties conservation to urban redevelopment.)

After 140 years of heavy industry, many of the region’s factories have closed and left brownfields, violence and unemployment in their wake. And while efforts to rehabilitate the Great Lakes have mopped up some pollution and begun to clamp down on invasive species, a report released Tuesday by the international body that advises Canada and U.S. on the lakes said the area still faces serious challenges. Agricultural runoff, flooding, drought, and the march of both invasive species and a changing climate are among the problems that plague people who call the southern end of Lake Michigan home.

Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said as much Tuesday at the Calumet Summit. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal funding program initiated by President Barack Obama’s administration, has enabled environmental work and research in recent years. Perhaps more importantly, Brammeier said, it has brought attention to the region and galvanized those already doing important work on the ground.

"As important as the money is the near-universal expression of support for the program year after year," he said. "That’s really at the heart of the success in moving money to entities on the ground."

Volunteer environmental stewards and planners alike see a future in green development.

Few people articulate that vision better than Lauren Riga. Tapped by Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson to head Gary’s new department of Green Urbanism, 28-year-old Riga previously served as a U.N. delegate at the 2010 climate change conference. About one quarter of Gary's buildings are vacant. As Riga and the mayor look to spur an economic revival, they plan to incorporate green infrastructure into new development. Meanwhile local and state agencies have helped rehabilitate habitat along the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, home to a series of fragile ecosystems known as pannes — wetlands nestled between sand dunes.

"[Riga] represents a new way of thinking for the region," said Andrew Pelloso, an environmental consultant who formerly worked for Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management.

"Everyone seems to see the region by Gary’s fate and fortune so what they do matters," he said.

Whether updating Northwest Indiana's stormwater infrastructure or retrofitting Chicago schoolyards, presenters at the summit emphasized action.

"Between now and the next summit go out and do something," U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky told the audience, "or everyone will have wasted their time over the two days."

Pelloso said for all the region’s challenges, and the bureaucratic headache it can be to get things done, the conference’s take-home message was affirming.

"We’re bound together by a common resource,” he said. “Not by state lines.”

Chris Bentley writes about environmental issues. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Illinois businesses work to sort out the Affordable Care Act

Thu, 16 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Illinois businesses are preparing for the Affordable Care Act to go into full effect in 2014, and a leader from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce says some are considering limiting work hours to avoid future healthcare costs. But costs and logistics vary widely across different types of firms.

“It’s one giant puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle,” said Laura Minzer, the Executive Director of the Health Care Council for the for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

She says employers, small and large, are scrambling to figure out which provisions of the federal law will apply to them and their employees. Businesses with under 25 employees may become eligible for tax credits for providing health care, while businesses with over 50 workers could face fines if they don’t provide affordable insurance for all employees working 30 hours or more.

The number of workers receiving employer-sponsored health care has declined steadily in recent years. Now, Minzer says limiting employee hours to under 30 is on the table for some bigger businesses worried about new health care costs.

“The cost of their benefits is not going down and it will not go down with this law,” said Minzer. Indeed, insurance premiums have been steadily rising, and experts expect to see a continued rise nationwide. But cuts to hours may be nothing new: the proportion of workers in part-time jobs has been on the rise since 2007.

One in five adults in Illinois is currently uninsured, and if they can’t get employer insurance, some will become eligible for government subsidies through the “marketplace” (formerly known as the exchange), which is a state and/or federally-run service intended to centralize and streamline shopping for private health insurance. Sliding scale subsidies in the form of tax credits will be available to those making up to four times the federal poverty level. Currently, Illinois has agreed to an insurance marketplace run jointly by Illinois and the federal government, but Minzer says the Chamber of Commerce supports opening a state-run marketplace by 2015.

“Even with all the concerns that we have about affordability, we see value in...the fact that you have a one-stop-shop for health insurance,” said Minzer. “The state is in a better position to administer that.”

States also have the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, an option that’s already being piloted in Cook County. However, because of a controversial Supreme Court decision, states can opt out of the Medicaid expansion, and Illinois has yet to pass a bill that would expand Medicaid statewide in 2014.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce also supports the Medicaid expansion.

That’s because there’s a benefit for business: employees who receive Medicaid would do so without triggering penalties for their big employers (as opposed to seeking out insurance through the marketplace, which would trigger penalties). Recent reports have found that larger businesses have a financial incentive to support Medicaid expansion and avoid fees for not providing health insurance to low-income employees.

Bills to expand Medicaid and to establish a state-run insurance marketplace are creeping through the Illinois General Assembly, and the federal/state insurance marketplace is slated to open October 1, 2014.

Lewis Wallace is a Pritzker Journalism Fellow at WBEZ. Follow him @lewispants.

Illinois Lt. Gov supports medical marijuana

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:51:00 -0500

Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon said she is in favor of a bill allowing the medical use of marijuana, explaining Sunday that testimony from seriously ill veterans and other patients helped change her mind.

"As a former prosecutor my first reaction was, 'I'm not interested in changing our laws on medical marijuana,'" she told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

But she said that after hearing from patients and reading up on the bill, she's convinced the regulations are strict enough.

Backers of the measure, which has cleared the Illinois House and awaits a Senate vote, have said the same thing.

The plan, touted as the strictest in the nation among states that have legalized medical marijuana, would authorize physicians to prescribe marijuana to patients with whom they have an existing relationship and who are living with at least one of more than 30 medical conditions, including cancer.

The proposal creates a framework for a pilot program that includes requiring patients and caregivers to undergo background checks. It also sets a 2.5-ounce limit per patient per purchase and sets out state-regulated dispensaries.

Supporters say marijuana can relieve continual pain without the detrimental side effects of prescription drugs. But opponents say the program could encourage recreational use, especially among teenagers.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois Sheriffs' Association are opposed to the measure, saying there's no sure way to figure out whether a motorist is driving under the influence of marijuana.

But Simon told the AP the bill is strict enough to prevent misuse.

"It does a good job of both getting medical marijuana to people who need and keeping it away from those who don't," she said.

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Chicago Democrat, has been noncommittal whether he would sign the bill, saying instead that he is open-minded to the idea.

Simon is weighing a run for another statewide office instead of seeking another term as lieutenant governor. The Carbondale Democrat declined Sunday to say which office she will run for, saying she will wait to see how other shape up.

Simon is likely choosing between Illinois' attorney general, comptroller or treasurer. In recent months, Simon has played up her law-related background and accomplishments including as a pro bono lawyer and prosecutor.

Her decision comes as the 2014 governor's race is heating up and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is weighing a possible challenge to Quinn.

Laid-off workers open their own factory

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:29:00 -0500

A few hours before the grand opening of New Era Windows Cooperative, Melvin "Ricky" Maclin is standing in the middle of the factory, beaming.

"All of this is ours," he said. "We have our own trucks, our own forklifts. It’s a whole new world."

Maclin’s title is the same as the 17 other people who work here: worker-owner. Together, they vote on decisions about the factory. He proudly shows the place where they jackhammered the floor to install water pipes. He says the workers didn’t know how to complete some of the steps to set up the factory, but they learned. They also took classes on business management.

"At first we thought we were just lowly factory workers," Maclin said. "But now we see we have so much more in us."

Maclin says that being a worker-owner means that for the first time in his life he has control over what happens to him. Back in 2008, when the factory was closed for the first time, he was devastated.

"This was right before Christmas," he said. "I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to buy my grandkids a doll for Christmas. It was a dark time, it was like we were in a free fall."

Maclin and the other workers of Republic Window occupied the closed factory. They were later paid the severance wages that they were legally entitled to receive. A California- based company called Serious Materials bought the factory and hired back the workers. But not long after, they also closed down.

The workers decided to do things differently that time and buy the factory themselves.

Working World, the organization that provided them with a credit line to help open the cooperative, says it would cost most companies $5 million to open. It cost New Era less than $650,000.

The first windows made by the factory will be titled the “1110 Series” after their union, United Electric 1110.

Shannon Heffernan is a reporter for WBEZ. Follow her @shannon_h

Report: Drop money in the river, watch it float back

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:57:00 -0500

The glitzy towers of downtown Chicago are filled with offices that boast impressive financial returns, but their biggest cash flow may be one they all share: the Chicago River.

A new report commissioned by Friends of the Chicago River and Openlands says each dollar invested in the river provides a 70 percent return. Completed, planned and proposed improvement projects, the report says, amount to 846 new permanent jobs, 52,400 construction jobs and $130.54 million every year.

“Investing in the Chicago River pays us back,” said Lenore Beyer-Clow, policy director for Openlands.

Friends of the Chicago River, which began as a project of Openlands, has championed the once neglected river since it was a “back alleyway full of sewage and trash,” in the words of the new report. Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have both called attention to the resource, most recently when Emanuel announced a plan to expand the city’s Riverwalk by six blocks. But Margaret Frisbie, the group’s executive director, said despite recent progress most people still don’t appreciate the full benefits of investing in the river.

The report looked at four major completed or planned projects involving the river over the last 30 years: the deep tunnel stormwater project TARP; disinfection of wastewater at three area treatment plants; $500 million worth of green infrastructure investment citywide over 15 years; and $93 million in projects by the City of Chicago and Chicago Park District.

The benefits came in the form of additional business income, tax revenue and jobs, but also avoided flood damage and sewage treatment costs. Investing in the river boots property values along its shores, too.

Wolf Point and River Point are among the high-profile riverside developments in the portfolio of real estate firm Hines Interests.

“Why are we focused on real estate along the river?” asked Greg Van Schaak, senior managing director for Hines. “It’s very simple: it’s more valuable.” Van Schaak said whereas rent in most towers varies by floor, buildings along the river retain the same value from the first floor through the fiftieth.

Van Schaak added that most of the major companies — Boeing, MillerCoors, BP — who recently opened offices in Chicago did so in riverfront buildings. “I don’t think that’s an accident,” he said.

Money talks, but it’s impossible to neatly quantify many of the benefits that natural systems provide. That may make it difficult to invest strategically even when all parties agree on the overarching value of a natural resource like the Chicago River.

“There are all these ancillary benefits to green infrastructure that aren’t quantified when you only look at economic returns,” said Debra Shore, an MWRD commissioner. Environmental benefits like carbon sequestration, soil retention and fresh air are valuable too, Shore said, but don’t yet appear on the ledger of an economic analysis.