Chicago’s chief of planning and development is exiting his role, in the latest departure under Mayor Brandon Johnson of a cabinet member appointed by his predecessor.
Commissioner Maurice Cox told his staff in an email Friday that he’s leaving his job, a high-level leadership change at City Hall that comes as Johnson approaches 100 days in office and appears poised to decide how many of his predecessor Lori Lightfoot’s allies to retain.
A Department of Planning and Development spokesperson said Cox’s last day was still to be determined. It was not clear what Cox’s last day in office will be, and a spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The former director of planning and development for the city of Detroit, Cox was an early appointee of Mayor Lori Lightfoot to lead the city’s planning department, which oversees the city’s economic development efforts, planning and zoning functions.
While previous planning heads were locals steeped in big real estate deals, Cox’s strengths were in architecture, design, and resident-centered developments. He served as mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, design director for the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, D.C. and was a practicing architect in Florence, Italy.
When Cox was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters earlier this year, Johnson said he was “proud to have him on my team and look forward to working with him to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago.”
Cox’s primary mandate was to shift the focus away from downtown and spearhead Lightfoot’s signature Invest South/West program, championing equity-centered investments in targeted South and West Side neighborhoods. Cox told the Tribune in 2019 he saw Chicago as having a heart (its booming downtown) and a soul (its motley collection of neighborhoods). Those neighborhoods would be his primary focus, though relatively early in his tenure, Cox was criticized by aldermen for a failure to communicate about neighborhood projects.
While Lightfoot and Cox claimed several Invest South West victories, the city failed to meet its goal to have shovels in the ground on city-subsidized Invest South West projects within 18 months, according to a Crain’s analysis last fall. A January Tribune analysis separately found $409 million of the $757 million in city-funded projects included as Invest South/West projects were either already underway when Lightfoot took office, dedicated to standard building repairs or were still in the conceptual phase. And despite promises that spending would be community-driven, the Illinois Answers Project also spoke to several community leaders who said Lightfoot’s administration was opaque about how winning projects were selected.
The COVID-19 pandemic also upended downtown’s sunny prospects, with fewer workers coming into the office and relocators opting for newer buildings in the West Loop.
Cox’s successor will be charged with managing the next steps for the megadevelopments at Lincoln Yards, the Bronzeville Lakefront, and the 78; efforts to accommodate the Chicago Bears and potentially transform Soldier Field and the surrounding Museum Campus in the event that they leave; the potential construction of the Bally’s casino at the current site of the Tribune’s printing plant and the future of Invest South/West.
