Logan Square Kitchen keeps changing every week. Currently the facade of the building is being restored. Also, drywall has been going up in the basement and upstairs apartments.

One of our attempted LEED credits calls for us to source construction materials regionally– within 500 miles of our Kitchen. On our Community Walk page, we’ve mapped out construction materials including:steel, plumbing, wood, stone, concrete, metal studs, and drywall.

We’re making good time in the kitchen. Underground plumbing is in, walls have been framed out, and the heavy duty task of hanging black iron duct for hoods is in the works.

As we build a kitchen to serve food producers and entrepreneurs, I’m seeing the dangerous ground on which our food supply rests in Illinois. We are a state of rich farmland, yet we import 95% of the food we eat, sending our hard-earned money out of state– $48 BILLION annually.

Fortunately we have terrific people hard at work to change this, to transform our food system into a healthy, more secure and more prosperous one.

Hello everybody, Lindsay here again.  I wanted to update everyone on LSK’s construction.  I visited the space last friday, and a lot of progress has been made over the last month.  A new concrete floor has been poured into the kitchen space, filling in that giant hole from my previous post.  Also the wall between the front dining room and the kitchen is up.

Living in the Great Lakes region, we’re spoiled by an abundance of fresh water. Growing up in Michigan, my childhood experience included every house on our block washing down its driveway with a hose every Saturday. I was in out of college before I could brush my teeth with the faucet turned off.

This is a milestone in our work to achieve certification from the US Green Building Council. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; it’s the government standard used to certify how ‘green’ a construction project is. We are submitting a checklist of items our team achieved during the design phase of the project for review. It represents 25 of the 38 credits we’re attempting to achieve a LEED Gold rating. Gold is second highest rating you can achieve on the LEED scale.

Hi everyone, I’m Lindsay, Zina’s intern. Last friday I went to the space to see the beginning of construction. It’s very exciting and very messy! Part of the concrete floor of the future kitchen space was dug out leaving a giant hole. You could see the roof from the basement.

Okay, this story would never come together if we didn’t live in the same neighborhood as the Kitchen. My neighbor calls to tell me there are two old pocket doors sticking out of a dumpster on Logan Boulevard. Who throws away beautiful old doors? Sooooo many people that we have salvaged about 60 so far.

What a great question, from my friend Stephanie Merello of Tinycakes. Logan Square Kitchen endeavors to tread as lightly as possible on the earth, always. That means making as many sustainable choices as we can during building design, construction and after our doors open.

We are starting construction today, and that means demolition. During this period, here are some green highlights:

• dismantle wood elements and reuse lumber on site
  

Yes! We finally have our construction permit from the City of Chicago to begin our renovations. Our contractor, Chas. Bender is getting started right away, and we expect a 4 month construction period. So summer it is for our opening! Tomorrow morning we start bright and early. It’s been 18 months since we found this building of hard word to get us to this point. I can’t wait to see it finally take shape in the physical world. It feels surreal, like it’s not really happening. But I’m sure the jackhammers will pull me out of that. On to the next set of challenges, I say!

As we wait for the City of Chicago to issue our construction permit, I’m finalizing our construction loan with Old Second National Bank. They are a wonderfully healthy bank, and the construction loan we were offered 18 months ago is still coming through for us, in spite of the banking crisis. Bob Briski, our commercial lender is terrific. In fact, we wouldn’t own the building without him. We had two weeks to close on this property– which normally takes 2-3 months– and he made it happen, while protecting us with all the usual due diligence.

Our construction permit is in the final stages, and could be ready Monday or Tuesday of next week. Our contractor, Chas.Bender and I had planned on a February 1st start. I expect we will actually put the shovel in the ground in about a week– perhaps February 9, 2009.

Boy, I sure know I’ve said that before. But we have the right budget, the right contractor, and have submitted for construction permit. I’m finalizing our construction loan and we’re looking forward to beginning construction in early February, and expect to be under construction for four months.

We continue to salvage great materials from wonderfully unexpected places. So far, we’ve found bath fixtures, tile, doors, lighting, and lots of oak and maple trim. As the snow falls, we see the hope of spring!