The immediate fate of the long-abandoned Damen grain silos will remain up in the air as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reviews plans to demolish the century-old concrete structures in Chicago’s Lower West Side neighborhood.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office on Tuesday said the city will defer its decision on pending applications to demolish the silos until federal review is complete.
Local preservationists and environmentalists have protested the silos’ November 2022 sale to MAT Limited Partnership and subsequent plans to dismantle the structures, which tower near the Stevenson Expressway from 2900 S. Damen Ave.
A letter sent to the Illinois Historic Preservation office dated Sept. 27 states that the U.S. Army Corps has classified the demolition as an “adverse effect” because “a complete demolition of the remaining site buildings would result in a loss of the context of the site.”
The silos have been out of use since 1977, but has served as a neighborhood beacon that was featured in the blockbuster 2014 film “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
Army Corps project manager Colin Smalley said that the finding doesn’t mean the Corps will deny the application to demolish. Instead, it triggers a public review process that he estimated will take at least 90 days.
He said the Corps would use the process to find solutions that “still accomplish what the applicant is trying to do (with the silos) but helps offset the loss of the historic nature of what’s left out there.”
That process will include a public meeting, which does not yet have a date.
“What we’re asking for right now is people who want to be what’s called a consulting party, anyone who has an interest in this property or the work that’s being done now,” Smalley said. “Because we know that the community has a lot of interest and there are a lot of parties with different interests we are going to have a public meeting; it hasn’t been scheduled yet.”
Smalley said Heneghan Wrecking Co., which is set to do the demolition work, initiated the permitting process with the Army Corps of Engineers because the Damen Silos sit along a waterway, the South Branch of the Chicago River.
He said the goal of the public input process is for the Corps of Engineers, MAT Limited Partnership and the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office to come to an agreement that would be incorporated into an eventual permit to work on the site.
“The focus is not on whether we issue the permit or not, it’s influencing how and what we put into the permit,” Smalley said.
City officials have promised concerned residents that demolition, should it occur, would not be a repeat of a May 2020 smokestack demolition that blanketed nearby Little Village in dust.
“This is not Hilco,” Building Commissioner Matthew Beaudet said at an August community meeting, referencing the botched May 2020 demolition. “The silos are being brought down using mechanical equipment. Explosives are not being used.”
Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th, said after the meeting that she’d try to work with the city and MAT to preserve at least some of the site.
Ramirez did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on Tuesday.
MAT owner Michael Tadin Jr. said in a statement that the company would “look forward to the process moving ahead through the appropriate permitting and review channels.”
“We understand that the city has an important responsibility to ensure that whatever replaces the Damen Silos is done with the utmost care,” the statement reads. “As the owner of the property, we share that perspective and will continue to be actively engaged with the community and all interested stakeholders.”
MAT purchased the site from the state of Illinois for $6.52 million last November. The company operates an asphalt plant across from McKinley Park’s eponymous park, which residents and activists have fought against since its opening in 2018.
The McKinley Park Development Council, one of the organizations participating in the Corps’ public input process, welcomed coordination between government bodies to determine the fate of the silos, said council President Kate Eakin.
“It’s good to see the city and the Army Corps of Engineers cooperating so they can make a decision in the best interest of the community,” Eakin said.
Eakin said the council’s priority “is to have a community asset on the site.”
She said she was hopeful that the additional review, “in light of other environmental activity going on the Southwest Side, will offer some benefit for residents.”