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Kids & Family

Letter to the Editor: We Are What We Build

Jhennifer Amundson's letter to the editor opposing the Lexington Club development will be run in two parts due to length. Amundson is a professor of architecture and architectural history at Judson University.

As is true of most places, the history of St. Charles is written in its buildings.  Not only are they the backdrop for the regular festivals and daily activities that draw people to the town and help to keep them here, but they are also symbols of how the city’s people have lived and what they value.  This is an obvious lesson for famous places: from the cathedrals of Europe to the casinos of Las Vegas, travelers can immediately tell what was important to the people of a place by virtue of what kinds of buildings attracted the investment of their time, effort, and money.

Likewise, the buildings of St. Charles tell its story.  From the modest start of the town (visible in two-room stone houses that dot older neighborhoods) to its rise as an entertainment destination (expressed in the extraordinary architecture of the Hotel Baker and Arcada Theater), the city’s growth and values are evident in its buildings.  Beyond these few examples stand hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of structures of diverse style, age, and use, and for all their differences, the great majority of them have in common an obvious concern for quality: quality in design, and quality in construction.  Even when buildings were economical, they prove their builders’ investment in the city, for their own use, and in preparation for the future.

We now call that concern part of “sustainability in architecture,” although that concept has been so obvious to architects and builders through most of history that they had no need to remind each other to do it.  That is not the case any more, and Lexington Club, the single largest development of residential homes to be proposed in the core of the city in many years, does not reflect the values that have long been part of St. Charles’ identity.  The design of the individual houses is a poor reflection of the city’s heritage; they are, at best, cartoons of the houses that make up the majority of St. Charles.  Their minimal variations within the enclave would actually express a dull redundancy across the project rather than connect it to its surrounding neighborhood and the abundance of architectural styles that presently are a hallmark of, and asset to, the city.  The street plan does not follow the traditions of St. Charles’ grid but rather is a low-cost, thoughtless solution that will ensure that the zone is isolated from, not knit into, the existing city.  The building materials are specifically chosen as a cheap alternative to those used throughout the city; the builder has requested a variance from the municipal building code to allow the use of substandard materials inferior to the standard set for residential construction by law.  The very name chosen for the development is isolating: “Lexington” means something in Kentucky or Massachusetts but it has no significance in Illinois; likewise, a “Club” is defined as much by the members it admits as the ones it excludes.

Just as the naming of the development reveals the degree to which the developer has no interest in the city, the choices to make the development an island of second-rate houses express miserly values of cold economy, not the concerned interests of community development.  The developers have little understanding of St. Charles except as one more mine from which to draw profit before they walk away.  They have no investment in the place except for a financial one.  And that is absolutely their right in a capitalist society.  But it is not their right (nor the right of any business) to demand a certain profit margin from the community where they offer their wares.  That is also part of capitalism: there are no guarantees that the public will buy what you are selling.  This is a point that surely the developers are not unclear about, but they have been very cunning with the means by which they have sought city assistance through variances in the zoning laws, TIF financing, and other means, to ensure profits on their investment.  The property is simply not as good an investment as it appeared to be before the bubble burst in 2008, and the developers are eager to recoup what they can.  They have tried to stretch the limits of the law to cheapen the product they are selling below the quality of what is acceptable in the city, ignored the dictates of the Comprehensive Plan and thus the voice of the community, and basically asked the city to offset their own losses.  It is their grasp for a bailout, paid for by the residents of the city.

Find the second part of Amundson's letter .

Jhennifer Amundson
500 Cedar Street, St. Charles

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