Economic Development, Not Destruction

Business owners were up in arms, and getting more frustrated as their complaints seemed to fall on deaf ears, but in the end, the people behind the Chicago Avenue project are far from ignoring local concerns.

To set the stage, Freeport announced a project that would completely redo Chicago Street downtown from Douglas Street all the way down to Jackson. The project would add in a new bike path, and extend curbs at the corners – but in the process was going to do away with all parking on the Northeast side of the street.

There-in lay the problem.

“They are going to remove 41 parking spaces on m...