The plan builds on Mayor Daley's 1996 plan to establish Chicago's prominence as the leading waterfront nature city on the globe. The Federation plan offers some important new innovations. With the Mayor's signing of the Urban Conservation Treaty for Migratory Birds and CPD's endorsement of the 1999 Chicago Wilderness Biodiversity Recovery Plan, the City has become more focused on its need to protect and enhance our natural environment. Sanctuary Point addresses these needs by calling for an outdoor nature museum, with a shoreline prairie and high quality wetland habitat that attracts a diversity of fish, birds and other wildlife to spawn, nest and forage, while requiring little ongoing maintenance. Its focus on habitat also creates a key stopover point in the international migratory bird flyway that runs through the Chicago region.
Urban habitat is an increasingly popular attraction and it makes good economic sense.
We want to offer our assistance to the Chicago Park District as they convert Meigs Field to public space a year from now. Visitors can learn about natural history outdoors. To supplement what they learn about exotic fish from other parts of the world inside the museums, we've created a plan where people can snorkel and see native fish in Lake Michigan as a real-life aquarium. The planned 2002 Meigs Field closing is the result of an agreement reached by the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois in 1997, which averted an immediate takeover of Meigs Field by the State. The agreement allowed for Meigs to reopen for five years and permanently enjoined the state from interfering with Meigs closure after the five-year period, which officially ends on February 10, 2002.