The rebuilt pergola is the first major construction milestone in a yearslong effort to restore the 1907 Sears Sunken Garden. Crews have begun installing replica concrete columns, and the structure is expected to be completed by early December. The work is part of a broader restoration whose overall price has been described differently in coverage.
The garden sits on Sears’ long-vacant 40-acre West Side campus in North Lawndale, and it was originally conceived as a break space for employees, complete with lush landscaping, fountains, a reflecting pool and a pergola, according to WTTW News. The garden opened in 1907 as a leisure space for Sears, Roebuck and Co. employees, as reported by Block Club Chicago. Sears eventually moved its headquarters to the Loop, and the sprawling West Side campus fell into decades of disuse, per the same WTTW account.
Replica Columns Replace What Couldn't Be Saved
The replacement concrete columns will form a pergola between two existing pavilions. Andrea Terry, principal and partner of Arda Design, the firm overseeing the restoration, said the original columns could not be retained because of their condition, according to WTTW News. Terry also said the pergola may have been built as a temporary solution for a major event, the station reported.
The pergola work is at least five months behind schedule, WTTW News reported. Replacing the columns added roughly $500,000 to the cost, which the Driehaus Foundation covered, according to the station. New oak beams will top the columns, and the finished pergola will include lighting.
Conflicting Price Tags for a Long-Planned Project
Published estimates vary, in part because reports describe different scopes and stages of the work. Block Club Chicago reported in November that the pergola restoration alone is set to cost $1.1 million; an earlier April report put pergola rehabilitation at about $700,000 within a roughly $5 million total project. WBEZ described the pergola work as the first step in a $7 million plan to revive the garden. Block Club Chicago reported that city permits and additional meetings with community stakeholders had delayed the project's start.
The project received a $1 million donation from the Driehaus Foundation, along with support from BMO Harris Bank and an anonymous donor. The Trust for Public Land is serving as community liaison for the garden's revitalization. More than 150 people took part in online and in-person engagement and design sessions shaping the project, per the same organization. Caroline O'Boyle, Illinois state director of Trust for Public Land, said the garden restoration could catalyze interest in redeveloping the Sears Administration Building, which still sits vacant directly across from the garden, per WTTW News.
A Planting Scheme From the Designer of the Lurie Garden
Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, known for his work on Chicago's Lurie Garden and Manhattan's High Line, created the garden’s planting scheme in his signature new perennial style, which favors plants with year-round interest over annuals that are pulled up seasonally, WTTW News reported. Phase two is expected to involve about two years of landscaping and infrastructure work, according to Laura Ekasetya, former head horticulturist at Lurie Garden and a board member of Friends of Sears Sunken Garden. Block Club Chicago described the work as taking about 18 months. Plans include excavating and reshaping existing landscaping to Oudolf’s design, building pool infrastructure, ordering plants, and adding stormwater storage, irrigation, seating, accessibility improvements and lighting.
WTTW News put phase two’s expected cost at about $3 million, and Block Club Chicago reported that fundraising for that stage is continuing. Ald. Monique Scott, who represents Chicago's 24th Ward, is pursuing TIF dollars to help pay for the restoration. Dionne Baux Jones, executive director of the Foundation for Homan Square, which will help manage the garden, said completing phase one may reassure funders and attract investment for the next stage, according to WTTW News.
A Campus Slowly Finding New Life
The garden's rebirth fits into a broader pattern across the old Sears campus. The company's former catalog printing building was converted into housing, the Lofts on Arthington, according to Landmarks Illinois. The campus power plant is now a high school, and the original Sears Tower has become Nichols Tower, a hub for nonprofits, per WTTW News. North Lawndale residents had already begun planting new plots in the garden back in 2023, well before this latest construction phase got underway, Block Club Chicago reported.
A North Lawndale Community Data Snapshot
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s 2026 North Lawndale Community Data Snapshot offers a profile of the community area.
For residents like Mia Bridges, who grew up in North Lawndale's K-Town community and moved back to the neighborhood a couple of years ago, the garden's slow revival is part of a larger story about the West Side reclaiming its own history. The pergola's early-December target gives neighbors a near-term marker to watch, even as the bigger, more expensive phase of the restoration — and the fate of the still-vacant Sears Administration Building across the way — remains a longer-term question.
