‘Next big thing’ in arts and culture in downtown Chicago?

Some two decades after Millennium Park opened, it’s time for the “next big thing” downtown, say a group of civic, business and community leaders.

Calling themselves “Team Culture,” the group wants to re-imagine major parts of downtown — filling vacant, often shadowy spaces with light and art.

“There have been two things in recent history that changed downtown. One was the Theatre District and the other was Millennium Park. It’s time for culture to do it all over again,” said Lou Raizin, president and CEO of Broadway in Chicago, speaking to a Tuesday lunchtime gathering at the City Club of Chicago at Maggiano’s Banquets downtown.

Raizin spoke of the potential for “huge economic opportunity,” pointing out that New York’s night-time economy generates about $35 billion annually and supports some 300,000 jobs.

Raizin and his supporters envision expanding the use of the city’s existing spaces, such as having a barge plying the Chicago River — a barge turned into a concert venue or perhaps one that holds a farmer’s market. (Music of the Baroque presented a full concert last summer from a boat moving along the Chicago River.)

And they imagine putting art in unexpected places, such as some of Chicago’s alleyways; a similar project in Detroit has created one of the “must-see” cultural things for visitors to the Motor City, Raizin said.

Or what if Lower Wacker Drive could be transformed into an “urban festival” site or art were to illuminate the gloomy below-ground corridors of the Chicago Pedway?

“What if at eight o’clock at night, you’ve gone to dinner, you’ve gone to a show, and a section of the pedway turns into a digital (light) experience?” Raizin said.

There were more questions than answers Tuesday, with Raizin and his would-be collaborators unsure where the money to fund the projects might come from.

“We are talking to a number of people,” Raizin said after the presentation, declining to mention names. “We are very close.”

“This is as much about the government getting out of the way and lifting constraints as it is about what we ask the government to do for us,” said Joe Ferguson, Civic Federation President and part of Team Culture.