Tuesday, January 26, 2010

City Colleges moves to demolish former Kennedy-King campus


Photo by Zol87 on Flickr check out Lee Bey's Zocalo blog for more pics of KKC's old campus.

Lee Bey's Chicago:
The City Colleges of Chicago has awarded a $6 million contract to a Chicago firm to demolish the former Kennedy King College campus  and turn the site into green space, Lee Bey’s Chicago has learned.

Brandenburg Industrial Service Company will be paid $6.276 million to raze the architecturally Brutalist 38-year-old campus at 69th and Wentworth.   The vacant campus, which straddles Wentworth, has been on borrowed time since 2007 when a new Kennedy-King opened at 63rd and Halsted.  A range of reuse plans for the old facility–including converting the school into a police and fire academy–were rejected, in part, because of the expense of modernizing the building, according to one city official.

A report submitted during last month’s City Colleges of Chicago board meeting by interim chancellor Deidra J. Lewis announced the bid award and said the campus would be demolished because it has been “out of service for two years and … restoration is cost prohibitive.”

It is unclear if the parcel would become permanent green space;  City Colleges last year proposed priming the site for retail or residential redevelopment by including it in an expanded tax increment finance district.

4 comments:

  1. Seems like a waste.

    There couldn't be ANY kind of use for it?

    Having that indoor bridge over the street seems like it could have been a good thing to help connect traffic on either side.

    Even though malls are on the downswing, it seems like it could've worked in this area.

    Oh well...

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  2. Unless it was sold to private investors it would have not received the attention it needed. the building had major construction flaws and trying to repair them would have been too costly. The money that has been spent on this JC has been a waste including the money spent on the new school.

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    1. I attended in 1980 thru 82..studying Architecture Technology..transferring to Olive-Harvey..it was a very inovative Design in Architecture which should have remained standing..that was a state of the Art design compared to the new Kennedy-King that reminds me of a High School..I think they demolished because of where it stood..not wanting that area to hold such great Architecture...it could have been rehabed in to a new learning center of some kind,.

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    2. The bldg. Should have been rehhabed to a new learning center of some kind..not demolished it was a state of the Art Architecture built in a low class black neighborhood..

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