“The veteran developer, with many successes on the South Side, said people who wanted the old building saved were unrealistic. The property remained in the hands of the Cook County Land Bank Authority, whose mission is to encourage development of difficult properties, especially in poor areas.

“Eleanor Gorski took over as executive director of the land bank last year and took a fresh look at the property. An architect and former staff member at Chicago’s Planning Department, Gorski kept in touch with Walker because the land bank felt he had submitted the best proposal when it advertised the property’s sale. She used the pandemic pause to urge Walker to think anew.

“I wanted the whole building preserved. The numbers just didn’t allow it. And yet, it’s such an iconic structure in the neighborhood,’ Gorski said.

“The numbers penciled out for that old friend of disparate views: the compromise. Walker has agreed to preserve the building’s limestone façade and its once elegant windows and entrances. Behind the five-story façade would be new construction, about 75,000 square feet, for offices Walker wants to market to neighborhood entrepreneurs.

“Walker has retained bKL Architecture for the new plan, which will be shown to the community later this month. Feedback there could change things. But Gorski said if all goes well, she hopes the land bank’s board can approve the property’s sale in June. She and Walker said the price is yet to be settled. Construction could start late this year and be done in 2024, Walker said.

“Architectural enthusiasts and many in the area had wanted the neoclassical design from 1924 to be saved. It was originally the Washington Park National Bank. In its prime, it projected class and stability at a neighborhood crossroads, like the bank buildings of yore in other parts of Chicago. But this bank, like many others, had trouble in the Depression and eventually disappeared. As the neighborhood declined, so did the building.

“It’s been empty for years. Its skylit atrium caved in long ago. Those who have been through the ruins describe it as like a setting for a dystopian movie. The group Preservation Chicago has researched the building’s history and placed it on its ‘most endangered’ lists.