Out Of The Loop?

"Fine contacted the city's Landmarks Commission and department of planning and development, neither of which, he asserts, was aware that the 17-story building, located in Chicago’s historic Loop—once a dense collection of 1920s structures that recently has suffered high levels of vacancies—had been slated for demolition... For Fine, the impending demise of the Mercantile Exchange exemplifies a larger problem among city agencies. 'The irony here is that the Building Department is on the eighth floor [of City Hall], and the Department of Planning is on the 10th, but unless we happen to see scaffolding going up on a building and call to find out what’s going on, nothing is ever communicated,' he says. 'No one ever knows until it’s too late.'"