>> The data silos 15 structures.

A 15 story structure built in 19.

0, for grain storage is one step closer to demolition.

That comes as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a crucial permit needed for the city to consider the proposal at limited partnership bought the 23rd Acre plot from the state back in 2022. at that time he purchased it.

He said he planned to develop the site into a headquarters for his company.

Local residents are pushing back on the development while others are hoping to save the silos from demolition.

He's joining us now to talk more arcade weakened president of the McKinley Park Development Council and Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation, Chicago.

Now we also invited owner Michael Tate, a junior to join us.

We received a statement from his spokesperson which will get a moment.

Well, thank you both for joining us now.

Kate, I want to start with you.

As I mentioned, the property was sold 2 years ago, but the owners has said there are no final plans for the development.

What are your concerns with the development and public access in the area?

>> Our first concern is that there is no plan for development.

The teams have repeatedly said that they don't know what they're going to do with it in a crispy.

Don't believe that you don't spend 6 million dollars on a piece of property unless you have a plan for it.

And this is an owner that has a history in our neighborhood.

They also own of them at asphalt plant on Pershing Road, which is in the middle of a residential area.

And we've had a lot of problems with that development and it's equally opaque with what their plans are for the in Believe they know they're just trying to keep it secret.

>> I do want to read minds.

want to try to read minds, but I don't believe I believe that if they had something that was intended for the benefit of the community, that they would be willing to tell us it Let's talk about the property.

Can you briefly minus about the significance of the silos?

>> It was built over 100 years ago.

It was also a location with one of the Transformer movies was filmed rate.

That's that is correct.

see it all the time, right?

Right.

That's the most visible point of it, right.

But it was designed by an engineer named John Metcalf in 19.

0, 6, >> And they used to slip arm of which was a unique form of of using concrete.

>> And it was such a successful agricultural silo that he continued to build.

He and his company can do to build sylas across the world, extending all the way to Australia with offices in like what areas in Sydney, Australia.

So really significant component of Chicago in early agricultural history, which a lot of people sort of forget about, right.

that's because especially when you're driving past it.

>> Every other day may be right about average Chicago.

Right?

And people ask what they are.

And you know, so this was one of our Chicago 7 most endangered in 2023. they're really significant.

We'd like to see them landmark.

We'd like to see some conservation working with the community and we have some ideas and visions and we like to work with the owner, Mike Tate in the city of the park district towards good outcome you ever communicated with Mike Tate.

yes, we have we have and he's been actually very gracious.

Given us tours isn't cut is in contact with us.

We haven't shared this sort of larger idea with them.

>> Now want bring up the statement that Michael Tate in gave us.

He said we have been committed to receiving input from various stakeholders in the community.

As we stated from the start of this process, Damon silos is an iconic piece of Chicago history.

We look forward to transforming the property for its future.

Use.

Okay.

Do you think the owner has been responsive to the community ideas?

He hasn't shown up to a single community meeting.

>> And what has community meetings have What have they been Lee?

Well, I mean, there is meeting for the city permits and which over 100 neighbors for presents.

And I hope that the city will handle the forthcoming permit prosus better than they handled at the first time.

The first time around.

They didn't come.

They didn't come to hear community feedback.

They came to tell us how they were going to They weren't expecting that money to people.

Well informed people to show up with ideas and really understanding the history with examples of things that have been done in other cities and what we're really asking for some creativity and use the process there's a lot of things you can do with this property other than tear it down.

It's an enormous piece of land twice at over.

23 acres and there's room to build something new there and to have something old.

Our commitment is to secure public assets on the property.

And that's really important to remember that this was public property.

And then the way that the state sold it back in 22, they took.

They also took no public comments, Noakes concern for the community whatsoever.

And there were several other proposed projects in that bid and over the years that would have been great assets to community.

What what does that say to you It says that the state needs to change their process and that's why at the time we actually lobbied for them to instead allow the city to conduct that process because the city has a process.

But the reason for invest Southwest and several other programs to take community input into account in the sale of public property in the state hasn't done that.

And with the statement also said they plan to demolish some time early 2025 which it's around the corner.

>> Is there enough time to make the case for preserving the silos?

like think so.

>> And, you know, we have we have vision and we've been work with Kate and her group in even the Chicago Park district in a preliminary fashion, as well as a Blue star properties that runs the salt shed, which is also another landmark in a former industrial building on on the Chicago River, the North branch in a very successful music venue in the whole idea is to have sort of a festival ground but also have green space, a RiverWalk in a lot of public access to a great piece of property that really could bring more musical events to Chicago and not take over neighborhood parks and for weeks at a time, which is really bringing a lot of angst to communities.

And of course, there's though the wear and tear on these parks here.

We would have a a solid place.

It's not in everybody's backyard in would be specifically sort of working together to bring these festivals and concerts to the which the reality is, I mean, they own the property so they can do what they want.

>> They can do what they want, but Mr. Tate in a shared with us that, you this, he could consider a sale of the property.

He'd like to sell it to one particular entity.

So we're working sort of fulfill that idea.

And and working with the community several of the city and private organization.

You talked about idea to talk about salt shed.

Kate, I want talk more specifically about that.

What other ideas do you see?

>> Happening there?

>> Yeah.

So I would point out that Blue Star was one of the by the bitters when the property was sold by the state and they're the only ones who submitted any qualitative analysis of what they intended to do on the site.

And we were really pleased to see that they were looking at sports venues and gathering spaces, gathering spaces or something our neighbors really want to see on the river and their big part of our communities plan for our riverfront.

That was published back in June.

So we're really pleased to see somebody come in and propose something that was appropriate