On a warm afternoon in May, a pair of geese and their gaggle of goslings waddle single file over broken pavement and shaggy patches of weeds on their journey to the edge of the Chicago River. Elsewhere, red-winged blackbirds chirp their songs while yellow butterflies flutter over wildflowers peeking through piles of rubble.
Or what would happen, as some have suggested in the past, if the land known as Rezkoville could return to its natural state as a crooked bend of the Chicago River nearly a century after the city engineered its straightening in 1928?
It’s fairly inspired as far as urban development goes, but consider that it could be transcendent—a 62-acre gem of green space nestled next to the Chicago River, like a mini version of New York City’s Central Park or Dallas’s ongoing project of creating a 10,000-acre nature district along the Trinity River.
Namely, that the property is privately owned by General Mediterranean Holding SA, a general contracting company headed by Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. The Luxembourg-based conglomerate purchased it from businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko for $131 million back in 2005. Rezko, who was convicted in the Rod Blagojevich era and released from jail in 2015, bought the land from the city in March 2002 for $70 million. After a decade of dormancy, Related Midwest formed a joint venture in 2016 with GMH to develop the site.
“Related Midwest have been quiet about their lands, and the mayor’s approach tends to be to follow the lead of the developer and do things as quickly as possible rather than engage with the public as to what’s best, especially in an election year,” says Irizarry.
