Throughout January, the Chicago Park District held several open house format community meetings, both virtually and in-person, in different parts of the city, to get resident input. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media)

As the Chicago Park District is putting together a new strategic plan, residents of Chicago South Side’s South Shore neighborhood want to make sure that one of the area’s most iconic structures, the South Shore Cultural Center, doesn’t get left out.

Throughout January, the park district held several open house format community meetings, both virtually and in-person, in different parts of the city, to get resident input. The last meeting was held on Jan. 29 at the South Shore Cultural Center, a former country club that was converted into a fieldhouse when the park district took over.

The building has frequently been used as a venue for private events, but it’s also supposed to host local programming. The members of the South Shore Cultural Center Advisory Council told the Chronicle that the park district has been treating it as little more than a revenue generator, allowing programs to diminish. This, they argued, is especially problematic for neighborhoods like South Shore, where kids and teens don’t have many places to hang out and have fun.

The advisory council called on the park district to make sure the South Shore Cultural Center becomes “a vital cultural hub” that “serves and nourishes the cultural needs of the community’s families, artists and culture organizations.”

The park district officials in the meeting didn’t directly address the questions about investment. But they insisted that they are taking a “very granular” approach to the outreach, so that the needs of every single community will be considered.

The Chicago Park District includes more than 600 parks throughout Chicago that vary widely in terms of size and amenities. Some are little more than a few square feet of lawn, while others span multiple acres and include one or more indoor facilities. The park district also controls Chicago the public pools and beaches.

The strategic plans set major goals and priorities for the entire park district system. The last major strategic plan dates back to 2012, but it has been updated several times since then.

According to Mike Merchant, the park district’s chief strategy officer, said that, given how much time has passed and the fact that the city has been through the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a good time to develop with a new plan.

The process is still in the early stages. Merchant said that the park district solicited feedback from employees, and they held “smaller community meetings” throughout the city. In January, it launched an online community survey, and it held three virtual meetings and four in-person open house style meetings in different sections of the city.

“We want to learn what people want, give us a sense of where we should be directing our funds,” Merchant said. “We want to learn what people want and desire and we’ll adjust accordingly.”

He said that the park district hopes to have the plan ready by summer.

During the Jan. 29 meeting, residents could submit ideas for what they like about the park and what they would like to see in the future, writing them down and putting them up on the sheets of paper taped to the walls. They could also talk to park district employees and ask questions. While many attendees were from the South Shore neighborhood, there were attendees from other South Side neighborhoods, including Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Chatham and South Chicago.

While some attendees said they appreciated that the meeting attracted people from outside the neighborhood, Lakeisha Grey-Sewell, of South Shore, was among several attendees who said she would have preferred a more meeting-style format, where attendees could take turns speaking.

“The voice of the community is important and necessary,” she said. “I don’t think this is the most productive format, and I don’t think they’re going to get a lot of voices from the community.”

According to U.S. Census data compiled by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, South Shore’s population is 92.7 percent Black, and the neighborhood has a median income of $35,887.

A little more than a third of the public parks have Park Advisory Councils — resident groups that advocate for the parks and advise the park district officials on programs. Members of South Shore Cultural Central Advisory Council who attended the meeting were upfront about their concerns. Jeanette Foreman recalled a time when the cultural center was bustling with programs, including many programs for kids.

“Last fall, there was one program, one,” she said, adding that a teacher who ran many theater programs “begged to be made full-time” and left when the park district couldn’t get her that.

The park district website showed that, out of 11 South Shore Cultural Center programs scheduled for the fall of 2023, seven were canceled. That included children’s theater classes, acting classes for adults and dance classes. This is especially striking when compared to what happened at fieldhouses in other major South Side parks. Jackson Park fieldhouse had 12 programs, Rainbow Beach Park fieldhouse in neighboring South Chicago had nine programs, and none of them were canceled.

Foreman said that the banquets, fundraisers and other events held at the cultural center may give an impression that the cultural center was busy.

“A lot of the time, this place is empty, and the community is on the outside,” she said.

Foreman recalled the upheaval in the summer of 2023, when teens from South and West Side neighborhoods flocked to Millennium Park. While she said she didn’t condone some of the disruptive behavior, she could see why they wanted to go downtown — they had nowhere to go in their own communities.

“The [cultural center programs] had been extremely important for socializing our children and [supporting] their mental health,” Foreman said.

The advisory council gave the Chronicle a copy of the three-page “strategic planning input” document it shared with the park district. It argued that the cultural center has several things going for it — the building itself, access to the beach and the nature sanctuary area, and partnerships with several local institutions such as the South Shore Opera Company and the South Chicago Dance Theater. The document urged the park district to provide “adequate funding for full-time staff, courses and cultural programming” with “special focus on programming to address the needs of families — and especially teens and youth.”

When asked how the strategic plan will make sure that the facilities get the resources they need, Merchant didn’t directly answer the question — but he reiterated that the feedback they get will be important.

“It’s not our parks — it’s the people’s parks,” he said.

Susannah Ribstein, one of the advisory council’s co-presidents, said she was hopeful that the input will matter.

“I’m glad they’re doing [out outreach],” she said. “It’s important. They need to talk to the community members in order to develop in the right direction. So, we’ll see.”