Brownfields 2025 Mobile Workshops
The Brownfields Conference offers several exciting opportunities to view local redevelopment sites through featured mobile workshops. Don’t miss your chance to explore Chicago with your Brownfields colleagues!
Book your mobile workshop experiences while completing your online conference Registration.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 1pm – 4pm
The Chicago River is the heart of the City of Chicago: its two branches have moved people and commerce for centuries. Away from the glittering high-rises of the Loop, we invite you to journey to an overlooked section of the river to learn about redevelopment and ecological restoration at the Wild Mile. Located along the North Branch Canal, the Wild Mile is the world’s first floating eco-park and uses floating artificial wetlands to restore habitat and native species in the river ecosystem. The second-half of the workshop would spark the intrigue of any brownfields stakeholder: a former industrial site turned brewery. We will walk to Off Color Brewing to hear about its beginnings and local history, all while enjoying a brew (or two)!
Transportation: Bus| $25
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 1pm – 4pm
Let’s dig into history at the Pullman State Historic Site, a landmark of industrial innovation, labor rights, and community redevelopment. Explore how the former Pullman Palace Car Company site-once a hub for railcar manufacturing and the labor movement-has been reimagined through preservation and redevelopment. In addition to touring the grounds and going into the visitor’s center, you will be able to witness brownfields site assessment using modern investigation techniques (with a PID, XRF, and a geoprobe). Learn from experts about the site’s brownfields assessment, cleanup, adaptive reuse, and its role in shaping economic opportunities for the future. Join us for a journey through the past, present, and future of one of Chicago’s most storied neighborhoods!
Transportation: Bus| $25
Sponsored by:
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 1pm – 4pm
Come inside and see firsthand how the home really is the heart of it all. Learn about the intersections of public policy, culture, and community-driven revitalization through an intimate tour of the brand new National Public Housing Museum. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to glance through the window and uncover the untold stories of families living in Chicago throughout American history.
Transportation: Bus| $25
Thursday, August 7, 2025
Thursday, August 7, 2025, 1pm-4pm
This mobile workshop will take a small group of participants on a kayaking tour of Chicago along the Chicago River. This workshop will combine the iconic river tour with a guide to Chicago’s waterfront brownfields redevelopment. Led by a local expert, the paddle will begin in Downtown Chicago and see attendees paddle along the waterfront.
Transportation: Bus | $60
Thursday, August 7, 2025, 1pm-4pm
Join us as we briefly view Lincoln Yards, a new development that is envisioned to connect Chicagoans to over 50 acres of riverfront sitting between some of the city’s most iconic neighborhoods: Bucktown, Wicker Park and Lincoln Park, and bring improved infrastructure and transportation, businesses and residences, parks and open spaces, and other amenities. The plan for Lincoln Yards includes an extension of the Bloomingdale Trail. Opened in 2015, the elevated trail connects four diverse neighborhoods, and brings together arts, history, and design on an alternative transportation greenway for bikers, runners, and walkers. The Bloomingdale Trail links four existing and two planned ground level access parks, collectively known as The 606. Exploration of The 606/Bloomingdale Trail will include a visit to one of the City of Chicago’s projects to cleanup Kimball Park, a site along the trail.
Transportation: Bus | Cost: $25
Thursday, August 7, 2025, 1pm-4pm
Walk through key areas of the Pilsen neighborhood to examine how redevelopment projects are reshaping the community, often displacing long-time residents and local businesses. We’ll go to the 18th and Peoria area, and walk around the old railroad tracks to the former Fisk Power Plant on the South Branch of the Chicago River, and head back north. The tour will discuss the history of industrial land in the area, the environmental challenges of brownfields, and the social tensions surrounding their redevelopment.
Transportation: Bus | Cost: $25
Friday, August 8, 2025
Friday, August 8, 2025, 8am-11am
This workshop combines a guided kayak tour with a unique view of Chicago’s stockyards history, riverfront redevelopments, and ongoing habitat restoration. Led by local experts, the paddle will explore Bubbly Creek to see herons, turtles and beavers, starting at the Bridgeport Art Center (a former Spiegel Catalog Warehouse) and ending at a revitalized former Superfund site – now a city park with the Jeanne Gang-designed Eleanor Boathouse.
Transportation: Bus | $60
Sponsored by:
Friday, August 8, 2025, 8am-11am
The future is here – and it is Green (Era)! Join us for a tour of the Green Era Campus, an innovative waste to energy facility recently developed across a nine-acre brownfield site on the South Side. Green Era uses the Midwest’s first self-sustainable anaerobic digester system to break down large quantities of food waste into both biogas (renewable natural gas) and nutrient-rich compost. In addition to diverting millions of pounds of food waste from landfills, Green Era partners with local non-profit organizations to serve as a hub for urban agriculture, healthy food distribution, and green job training. Seasoned experts will be on-hand to discuss all facets of the Campus, from the property’s history as an abandoned brownfield to present-day operation of specialized food waste processing equipment. Comfortable walking shoes and sun protection is recommended. Portions of the tour may be outside.
Transportation: Bus | Cost: $25
