Tribune reports on Antheus in Hyde Park

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posted by chicago pop
A decent little piece in the Tribune's business section today more or less covers the range of local opinions (including ours) on the Antheus-financed MAC-vasion of Hyde Park Kenwood. George Rumsey gets in a tart little zing, someone complains that Hyde Park risks losing its 'small town' feel, and someone else worries about the neighborhood no longer being a bastion of low-income housing. I had a number of more positive things to say in addition to the comment quoted, but they didn't make it into this short piece. Which is a sort of too bad, because - probably unintentionally - the piece comes off as Antheus/MAC vs. Everybody. 
A choice excerpt: 

This month, a small group of residents gathered at the Hyde Park Art Center to see Gang's designs.

While several praised the scale and beauty of Gang's work, some residents said they were worried that the project might alter Hyde Park's quirky, small-town feel. And others were concerned about Antheus' plans to ask the city for $10 million in financial assistance — money the company initially said it wouldn't seek. Funding would come from the 53rd Street tax increment financing (TIF) district.

"You are using TIF money for huge projects that are forcing independent business owners who have been in Hyde Park for generations in some cases to close," said resident S. Beth Thomas. "You want to make Hyde Park look like a world-class neighborhood, but my concern is the people who are being displaced," she said.

And Rumsey's little splash of NIMBY hot sauce on Eli Ungar's business lunch:

"MAC has a history of making really dumb decisions when they acquire new properties and having to back down when it's a public relations disaster," said George Rumsey, an affordable housing advocate and former president of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference.
Ungar, 44, often plays "good cop" and flies in to rescue MAC, using his affable personality to calm residents' ire. "He knows how to feel your pain," Rumsey said. "He'll say, 'Let me look at it' and calls and takes people to lunch."

Meanwhile, the Del Prado and East Park building look better and better every day, the Shoreland is kept from demolition, and the sidewalks down each side of Hyde Park Boulevard are shoveled within hours of every snow storm - not something a good number of local property managers were managing to accomplish prior to Antheus's MAC-vasion.