Honor the past. Inspire the future. And redefine destination. Returning to Hyde Park in 2013.
The story of Hyde Park starts here. Welcome to Harper Court. Developed in partnership with the University of Chicago and the City of Chicago, Harper Court is set to return to Hyde Park in 2013 and provide the community with the destination it needs and so richly deserves. To Hyde Park, Harper Court is more than just real estate. It’s a gathering place, a community anchor and a longtime beacon for the arts. It’s vibrant and alive – a neighborhood stronghold with something to say – namely, that it’s been waiting for this.
This ceremony culminates over a decades worth of work among the city, the university, and the community to reinvigorate the 53rd Street corridor and more particularly this site. In 2013, Harper Court will reopen with 74,000 square feet of new space, tenants ranging from dining and entertainment to fitness use. For those of us who have been in Hyde Park for a long time and for those of us who have been in Hyde Park for a short time, I have recognized for a long time that there was something that could better about Hyde Park. What we set out to do was in partnership with the city, in partnership with the various communities, recreate 53rd Street as a vital urban environment that offered amenities but more than that offered a place where people would come together. The city of Chicago has worked for years to engender commercial development in Hyde Park. Via community workshops that are sponsored, the city has helped to crystallize a vision for the 53rd Street corridor. Partnership really is the key and operative word for this. It's the way the university has approached this project. It's the way we're approaching many of our other projects connected to the community, whether it's in education, health, or economic development. The university actually inked a memorand Today we celebrate 150,000 square foot office tower, 80,000 square feet of community serving retail, but for us what's most exciting, 800 construction jobs, 350 permanent jobs, 150 permanent hospitality jobs, and I'll have to look at the councilmen of the Alderman, how many tens of millions of dollars of incremental tax revenues will this project generate that can then be reinvested in the form of services in the community? Almost a thousand people will work at this site. And tens of thousands every year will visit the new Harper Court. When everything lines up right though, you also get the opportunity for commercial vibrancy being created and that's exactly what we have here. This development will be catalytic not just for the 53rd Street corridor but to get people to think differently about the Mid-South side. There is no community in Chicago whose citizens are more engaged in shaping the future of their neighborhood than Hyde Park.