What would you like to see at 115th/Michigan

115th/Michigan - Summer 2014

Over at The Sixth Ward I did a post about this corner in June 2013. The pics seen in this post save for the final historic post was taken in the summer of 2014. Consider this something of an election year post as I believe this corner could be a key one when the red line extension is finally built.

There are four people running for Alderman including the incumbent and he has three challengers. Hopefully all of them have an eye on this corner and perhaps their vision may not even include the red line extension although it is my belief this corner would benefit from the proposed stop over Michigan Avenue. Whatever the vision hopefully it would include some form of transit oriented development.

Over the years the lot at 115th & Michigan had a number of buildings including a shopping center that had been razed during the course of the last decade. That lot included a number of retail stores (such as a grocery store and Perry Drugs), restaurants (such as The Coffee Pot), and more. The most recent development plans for that lot included a future shopping center including an Aldi's.

Family Dollar 115th/Michigan

The vacant lot to the east on 115th/Michigan

What I failed to do in the other post was show a picture of how this intersection looked back in the day. This business strip was actually an active area with plenty of activity but what happens over time things do change. Perhaps we'll see this activity again by the time the Red Line is up and running in the near future hopefully. Below is what you'd have seen at this intersection east of 115th/Michigan.

115th/Michigan in 1934

Now the burning question...what would you like to see here?