| By Tim Zorn / Post-Tribune staff writer |
GARY — A century ago, industrial planners looked at Northwest Indiana’s sandy, scrubby Lake Michigan shoreline and envisioned industries.
Their vision became the region’s industrial base.
Now another group of visionaries is working on a new idea: transforming most of that industrial land into public use.
Their plan could lead to “the most fundamental change we have seen in Northwest Indiana in the past 100 years,” U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky said.
Visclosky, D-Merrillville, spoke Tuesday at an event announcing the team of planners who will propose and refine ideas to re-make the region’s industrial landscape.
Hired with a $200,000 grant, the planners will draft a plan, called the Marquette Greenway, by Jan. 31.
Visclosky’s vision is to open 75 percent of the industrial shoreline — about 21 miles long, from the Illinois line to Burns Waterway — to free public use.
“I want this to make this the best place in the United States to live,” Visclosky said.
Gary Mayor Scott King noted the importance of Chicago’s lakefront parks — planned more than a century ago by Daniel Burnham — in that city’s growth.
Most of the money for the study comes from a state grant. The five cities along the shore — Hammond, Whiting, East Chicago, Gary and Portage — each chipped in $8,000.
The planning team is headed by JJR, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based landscape architecture and urban design firm with a Chicago office.
Other members include J.F. New & Associates, an environmental firm from Walkerton; Huff & Huff, a LaGrange, Ill., environmental company; Short Elliott Hendrickson, a Minneapolis-based engineering firm with Munster and Gary offices; and The Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that tries to preserve land for parks.
Within a month, planners will start meeting with representatives of industries, cities and environmental organizations along the lakefront.
This summer, they will conduct a series of public meetings to gather suggestions from the region’s residents.
Along with long-range plans, the planners also want to identify projects that can be started and carried out in a few years.
Reporter Tim Zorn
can be reached at 648-3073