Long-stalled efforts to freshen Navy Pier will rev up again Wednesday, this time with a set of suggestions that would add attractions for kids and young adults but stop short of turning Chicago’s lakefront playground into a full-blown theme park.

The possibilities include attracting a children’s entertainment anchor if the Chicago Children’s Museum exits, as planned; significantly expanding the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and adding another nearby restaurant; overhauling the tired and cluttered retail and fast-food areas; and adding a 4,000-seat concert venue, an indoor skating rink, more greenery and, perhaps, a gargantuan Ferris wheel and a boutique hotel.

“One of the things I think is important about Navy Pier is that it continues to be a real place as opposed to a theme park or something contrived,” said Steven Haemmerle, executive director of development for Navy Pier.

Navy Pier officials say they are stepping away from an earlier strategy to make the pier more of a cash cow to support operations at struggling McCormick Place. Rather, they say they are returning to a vision of the pier as an affordable public space with a mix of the cultural and the commercial — a vision that fed its 1995 rebirth as a tourist attraction. In fact, the historic pier may end up as a self-sustaining, stand-alone entity, rather than continuing to operate in the shadow of the affiliated convention center, with a decision possible next year.

Previous administrations, under intense financial pressure, “lost the focus on the public aspect and the need for balance, and the pier shows it,” said Jim Reilly, the trustee who is overseeing an 18-month restructuring of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency known as McPier that owns and operates the pier and the convention complex. As an example, he cited steep pier parking rates, which the authority will lower on a trial basis this winter.

While past plans went nowhere due to upheaval at the authority and lack of money, officials say the recent revamp of the agency and the restructuring of its debt should make it possible to move forward with as much as $50 million in funding to get projects launched, with additional financing to come from private ventures. An overall price tag is still being developed, Haemmerle said.

Back in ’95, the intent was to refresh pier offerings after its first 10 years as a tourist magnet, and the authority is now five years past that goal, said Reilly, whose first stint running McPier occurred back when Navy Pier was redeveloped at an eventual cost of $225 million.

“We need to get going,” he said, adding that creative ventures such as Chicago-based restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc. are constantly refreshing their concepts.

The suggestions being unveiled Wednesday were developed by the Urban Land Institute, largely a developers’ group, at McPier’s request. The study, commissioned for up to $120,000, will serve as a menu of options as McPier develops a redevelopment plan by late January. McPier will be assisted by real estate adviser Jones Lang LaSalle, at a cost of up to $310,000.

The Urban Land Institute concepts come four years after theme-park designer Forrec Ltd. produced a set of flamboyant and highly commercial proposals that landed with a thud, alienating local park advocates and architects. That study cost McPier nearly $385,000.

This time there are no proposals for massive roller coasters, water parks or floating parking garages and hotels.

The pier remains the state’s most visited tourist site, drawing 8 million visitors a year, but attendance has declined from a peak of 9 million in 2000. The Urban Land researchers believe a revamped pier could attract about 12 million visitors a year.

If public and private financing can be cobbled together, the goal is to have many improvements in place by 2016, the 100th anniversary of the pier, first envisioned as a grand public space by legendary architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham.

Some of the institute’s key recommendations follow:

•Find another major children’s attraction if the Chicago Children’s Museum leaves, as expected. With 500,000 visitors a year, the museum is a critical anchor. Replacement possibilities include KidZania, a mini-city for kids; or Legoland Discovery Center.

•Help fund a Chicago Shakespeare Theater expansion. The theater would like to add a 950-seat facility to its existing 500-seat and 200-seat theaters, potentially in the neighboring space now occupied by the pier’s underutilized Skyline Stage, home to Cirque Shanghai in the summer months. A new Shakespeare theater could add another 300 events, and more than 200,000 additional visitors.

•Find alternative uses for the sprawling Festival Hall, an underused exhibition space midway down the pier that hosts Winter WonderFest and some trade shows. Possibilities include a live-performance venue, ice-skating rinks, sports courts and more shops and restaurants. The institute also suggests consideration of a 200- to 400-room hotel near the hall, though it said more study would be needed to see if it was a financially viable location.

The family-oriented pier, which is adding one of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurants next spring, is seeking to build up its adult-oriented night-time business.

•Replace the existing Ferris wheel with a gargantuan wheel with enclosed, temperature-controlled cabins, similar to the London Eye. The existing wheel attracts 750,000 visitors a year for its $6-per-person, 7-minute rides. Mega-wheel rides tend to be a half-hour and to cost about $30 per person.

Reilly said he remains somewhat skeptical of this idea, which McPier has considered for some time. “In terms of keeping the pier affordable, it’s an issue,” he said.

•Update the Family Pavilion shopping and food court at the front of the pier, take care of deferred maintenance throughout the pier and find ways to make the pier more park-like by adding more greenery and possibly water-level platforms that would allow visitors to get closer to the lake, at least on calm days.

kbergen@tribune.com

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