Keep Lincoln Park Public

ALERT....ALERT....ALERT....ALERT....ALERT....ALERT

According to a June 12th article in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Park District has approved the demolition of over 4 acres of Lincoln Park for the construction of a running stadium.

CPD has made this decision without any public meetings on the plans, without notifying the community and without concern for the thousands of people from the Chicagoland area that use this area of the park on a weekly basis.

All that’s left is the bulldozing of the largest piece of open-greenspace in Lincoln Park and the removal of many of the trees that line the walking trails. With the plans for the expansion of the Latin School and their funding for this track, perhaps we should call the south-end of Lincoln Park the “Latin School Arena”.

Thank you all for your valiant effort at trying to keep Democracy alive in Chicago.

--KLPP Board

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Keep Lincoln Park Public (KLPP) is a group of Chicago residents organized in support of maintaining open green space, park preservation in Lincoln Park, and calling for the Chicago Park District to honor the reclamation of this area as per its own Lincoln Park Framework Plan. (page 41).

Keep Lincoln Park Public (KLPP) takes the position that this track/soccer facility is unrelated to historic land uses of Lincoln Park and is not dependent upon being in Lincoln Park and therefore suggests a facility of this nature would be better suited for a location other than public park lands.

The Chicago Park District is seeking public and private partners, namely Chicago’s Latin School which is donating 1/3 of the proposed $2.2M cost, in a bid to develop a sports complex consisting of an eight lane regulation size running track and Astroturf soccer field, smack dab in the middle of one of the most trafficked and overused parcels of Lincoln Park – the South Field area just north of LaSalle Drive.