If you had asked cosmopolitan Springfieldians in 1990 or so to name the Springfield parking ramp designed by flamboyant German American architect Helmut Jahn, most would have pointed to the municipal ramp at Seventh and Monroe. As built in 1967, its louvered façade of precast concrete slats made it one of the handsomest structures of any kind in the capital. They would have been wrong. The city ramp was the work of Springfield s Ferry & Henderson with Ralph Hahn and Associates. A block up Seventh Street is the one Jahn designed. Jahn – who died May 8 after running a stop sign in the Fox River valley (he was 81 and on a bicycle, a very Jahnian death) was a young partner in the 1970s at the Chicago firm of C.F. Murphy and Associates. He was tasked with the design of the parking ramp being built for the new convention center complex. The Springfield Metropolitan Exposition and Auditorium Authority had asked the developer of the adjacent hotel to give SMEAA more ramp than they h
The building is an abomination and a money pit for the state. The heating and cooling costs due to the open layout are not practical.
Bill Savage makes a good point. I’ll say this, I went in it around the time it opened (85?) and thought it was cool. Then went in there for work occasionally and I hated it. Just the worst place. I think Jahn was brilliant and love much of his other work but that place blows.
The JRTC was the Delorean of buildings.
I can only conclude that those who want to save the building were never in it.
“Politicians should not be allowed to select their own voters,” said state Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria. “This is the room where Democratic politicians come in and out, selecting the very voters that they will choose to represent instead of empowering voters so that they can choose their own elected officials.”
Welch spokesperson Jaclyn Driscoll said in a statement the redistricting process “is and will remain a transparent process.”
“Soon, we will file the map and the public will be given a chance to weigh in,” Driscoll said. “We strongly encourage participation from everyone.”
State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, speaks at a news conference in the Stratton Building in Springfield on Thursday.
I’m not sure a drab, empty meeting room sends the message HGOP was hoping for…
But then, tbh, I’m not sure what message they were hoping for?
- Louis G Atsaves - Thursday, May 6, 21 @ 11:28 am:
So right now only Democrats are looking at these proposed maps? The maps still aren’t in the hands of the GOP? Doesn’t sound all that transparent at the moment. And the same old same old procedure being used is no excuse based on all the claims that this would somehow change. It hasn’t. It won’t. Democratic legislators going into a private room to review maps and suggest changes that would benefit them? I know, I know. Nothing to see here. Just move on. They got the votes to do what they wish, not what they promised.
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