Since Children’s Memorial Hospital moved its operations from the former Lincoln Park campus location to Streeterville in June 2012, 43rd Ward Ald. Michele Smith and area residents and organizations have repeatedly rejected the reconstruction plans for the site.

DePaul’s Lincoln Park Student Center hosted the fourth community meeting concerning the future of the development conducted by Smith on Tuesday. Chairman and CEO Dan McCaffery and his colleagues, of real estate developer McCaffery Interests, Inc., presented an amended plan that he stated stemmed from consideration of “virtually every comment we received from everybody and by everybody” on their prior proposals.

The project promises new shops and parks, senior and affordable housing along with apartment and condominium units and a projected $3.5 billion in total economic impact at what architect Joe Antunovich deemed the “crossroads of Lincoln Park.”

In an auditorium overflowing with attendees, the altered plans were met with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation, as both rounds of applause and disapproving boos arrived after various announcements.

Recurrent hot-button issues included the proposed construction of three mid-rise buildings, each exceeding 100 feet and potentially adding unmanageable population density to and casting a literal shadow over the neighborhood, as well as the inevitable increase in commercial traffic that the proposed mixed-use development would bring.

As part of the company’s revisions, the seven other buildings that make up the site would be retained or rebuilt renditions of already present structures. McCaffery’s amended plan also catered to residents’ requests by greatly increasing the amount of open space and parking at the development and decreasing the overall area covered, height of the buildings and retail presence.

McCaffery Interests was selected to redevelop the site when the hospital relocated, an event that also yielded DePaul’s acquisition of a former hospital office building on the southeast corner of Belden Avenue and Halsted Street, which now serves as the headquarters of the university’s College of Education. Tuesday’s meeting was the latest in a series of presentations that have sought to reach a compromise that could commence the further revitalization of what Crain’s Chicago Business magazine referred to as “potentially one of the most prime pieces of property in the city” in a June article.

However, McCaffery also correctly predicted that the company would be unable to “convince 100 percent of the audience” of the merits of their plan at Tuesday’s meeting. After a lengthy presentation led by Antunovich and statements from representatives of community groups, the floor was opened for comments from the public, and the feedback was not always laudatory.

“Zoning laws exist to prevent projects like this,” one Lincoln Park resident said. “I don’t believe the statistics that this will be somehow better than when Children’s existed … all of the flowery language about adaptive reuse and open spaces doesn’t change the fact that there is going to be a lot of traffic and high rises going up and casting shadows on our homes and backyards that have been there for 100 years in many cases.”

Others took issue with the fact that the proposal hinged on a zoning exemption granted to Children’s Memorial Hospital that provided for the construction of taller buildings than are normally allowed in the area.

A pamphlet handed out prior to the meeting that opposed the plan noted that “the value of this land is significantly greater with ‘special zoning'” and argued that the hospital should not be allowed to “profit from exceptions to zoning that were made to allow it to function as a not-for-profit children’s hospital.” David Chernoff of the Mid-North Association similarly commented, “What a neighborhood will do to accommodate a non-profit children’s hospital is not the same as what they will do or should do to accommodate a for-profit developer.”

Nevertheless, the plan also received praise and support from many of the individuals and organizations on hand, including Lincoln Park resident Steve Anrod. “I was surprised but thrilled at how many supporters there were … usually it’s easier to mobilize people.