Addressing criticism that he had eroded the authority of Chicago’s landmarks commission, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday named two architects to the panel, which later this year is expected to consider permanent protected status for Marina City.
The architects named to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks are Juan Moreno, whose designs include the El Centro branch of Northeastern Illinois University along the Kennedy Expressway, and Gabriel Ignacio Dziekiewicz, who heads the Chicago architectural firm DesignBridge.
Emanuel is also appointing Carmen A. Rossi, a restaurateur, to the commission. City Council approval of the appointments is expected.
In 2011, shortly after taking office, Emanuel drew fire from Chicago’s architectural community for not reappointing four respected members of the panel, including Chicago architect Ben Weese and Phyllis Ellin, a National Park Service official with a master’s degree in historic preservation.
That left no architects among the voting members of the commission.
Now, Emanuel is not reappointing two members he named to the panel in 2011 who lacked design expertise — celebrity chef Tony Hu and Anita Blanchard, a gynecologist married to Chicago business executive Martin Nesbitt. Nesbitt is a close friend of President Barack Obama and a contributor to the mayor’s campaign fund.
The changes on the commission are “a positive development,” said Bonnie McDonald, president of Landmarks Illinois, a Chicago-based statewide advocacy group.
“We know that the review of plans for the urban environment is assisted by that design perspective,” she said.
The other vacancy on the commission was created in March with the death of Chicago architect Victor Ignacio Dziekiewicz, father of Gabriel Dziekiewicz. The death of the elder Dziekiewicz, whom Emanuel appointed to the commission in 2012, again left the commission without an architect.
The landmarks panel, which recommends to the City Council whether buildings and districts should be given protected status, has traditionally had at least one architect among its members. That architect often serves on the panel’s permit review committee, bringing technical expertise to the panel as it reviews proposed changes to such landmark buildings as Wrigley Field.
Having two architects on the landmarks panel will likely lend credibility to a potentially controversial upcoming vote to grant permanent protected status to Marina City, the iconic 1960s mixed-used complex along the Chicago River.
The commission gave Marina City preliminary landmark status earlier this month. The owners of the commercial portion of the complex, a Maryland-based real estate investment trust, have not responded to phone calls and it’s not known whether they would consent to landmark status.
The city is also considering landmark status for the 100-story John Hancock Center on North Michigan Avenue.
Emanuel is reappointing commission members James M. Houlihan, Rafael M. Leon, Mary Ann Smith, Richard L. Tolliver and Ernest C. Wong, who is a landscape architect.
Chicago Tribune’s Hal Dardick contributed.
Twitter @BlairKamin
