BY TOM MCNAMEE Staff Reporter

How some folks dream. Then again, it's the dreamers who have made Chicago not just big -- hey, Houston is big -- but great.

As a city, we express our dreams for the future in Millennium Park, so perfectly realized it does not seem entirely of this time and place.

We express our dreams for the future in the grand old classics, such as the Chicago Theatre, which we have finally -- after decades of destruction -- learned to cherish.

And we express our dreams in that most dubious of earnest exertions -- a plan.

Plans are boring and plans are pipe dreams, but Chicagoans know firsthand the power of a great one -- the stunning Burnham Plan of 1909 that envisioned our breathtaking lakefront -- and so we should know to take new plans seriously.

Specifically, this one: The Chicago Central Area Plan for 2020.

What will downtown Chicago be like in another 15 or 20 years? It's all in the plan. It is a predictably rosy vision: the greenest, most vibrant, most livable downtown of any big city in America.

Imagine even more parkland along the lakeshore. Imagine a Greater Loop of office towers, parks and condos stretching to Greektown on Halsted Street. Imagine a park on a shelf over the Kennedy Expressway between Monroe and Madison streets. Imagine 140,000 more people living downtown, 180,000 new jobs and 95,000 college students. Imagine riding a bike along the river and lake, without interruption, from Chinatown to North Avenue Beach.

IN DOWNTOWN'S FUTURE

These are some of the bigger -- or merely intriguing -- projects being discussed that could help shape downtown for decades:

Block 37 -- Things are finally happening with this perennial site of broken development dreams across State Street from Marshall Field. If the CTA gets its funding for its piece of this puzzle -- providing express-train service between here and the airports -- the combination of transit plus shopping and nightlife could foster a Loop that never sleeps. Outlook: Still iffy, but improved. West Loop offices -- If new downtown office development continues, this is where many of those offices will go because the blocks west of Union Station and the Ogilvie Transportation Center still have plenty of surface parking lots, and the city has zoned the land for high-rises. Outlook: Likely. McCormick Place expansion -- The sprawling lakefront convention center is expanding to compete with Las Vegas and Orlando for business. This is an $850 million gamble that a new crop of business and tourism dollars can reach downtown. Outlook: Inevitable. Lakeshore East -- This 4,900-home housing development between Wacker Drive and Grant Park will yield a school for condo kids. It points up a need for more convenience retailing: Hey, it's still hard to rent a video downtown. Outlook: First stages under construction. Trump Tower -- Ninety-two stories on the river will give the city a riverfront promenade and a pedestrian link between Michigan Avenue and State Street shopping. Outlook: On its way up. Fordham Spire -- A concoction of "star-chitect" Santiago Calatrava and developer Christopher Carley of Fordham Co., it's a proposed 110-story home on the lakefront for multimillionaires. The twisty, drill-bit design has supporters, but financial and zoning questions might bring it all down to earth. Outlook: Unlikely. Central Station -- This South Loop collection of mid- and, increasingly, high-rise condo buildings has established a prosperous new community. A $1 billion, 1,200-unit expansion is in the works. Outlook: Strong and steady. Union Station addition -- The landmark transportation hub needs help. A planned high-rise addition could provide it. One- and two-tower versions are under consideration by Amtrak, which is deciding on a developer. Outlook: Far, far off. Transit loop -- It could be buses, or maybe light rail. But the potential is there for a speedy transit connection from the new Trump Chicago tower at Wabash north of the river to the West Loop train stations and on to McCormick Place. Outlook: Unlikely; sounds too much like the old "circulator" trolley plan. Park on a shelf -- Chicago perfected the concept of selling air rights -- the rights to build over something. Planners envision employing that idea to construct a West Loop park over the Kennedy Expressway. Outlook: Needs big-name backers to have a chance. David Roeder

Imagine 35 million conventioneers and tourists, many of them staying in 10,000 new hotel rooms, and many doing business at a newly expanded McCormick Place. Imagine 7 million square feet of new retail space, with Michigan Avenue's Magnificent Mile rolling into the State Street shopping district. Imagine a public transportation system, anchored by a West Loop transportation complex of trains, L trains and buses, that is so efficient it dramatically reduces environmentally noxious automobile traffic.

Rosy visions are the stuff of uncritical boosterism, and so it would be easy to dismiss this new official plan for Chicago's downtown. But, after two decades of indisputable progress, as described in earlier installments of this Sun-Times series, Chicago has every right to feel optimistic, to believe in itself. When the Picasso statue was unveiled in 1967, skeptics viewed it as less a harbinger of good things to come than as an expression of wishful thinking. The Loop was on the skids. But, when Millennium Park's "Cloud Gate" sculpture -- The Bean -- was unveiled last summer, it rightfully was seen as a symbolic topping-off after years of mountain climbing.

"Man is a social animal -- that's why cities developed," said developer Buzz Ruttenberg, of the Belgravia Group. "There is a real dynamic downtown, an interchange of people."

Enough happy talk. What could go wrong with the grand plans for downtown?

Everything, of course. The economy could go bust. The nation could be rattled by another Sept. 11. A meteor could pulverize Grant Park.

Taxes a threat

But there are specifics. Like the vision thing -- we had better keep it. Will the next mayor have it?

"I would say if Rich Daley is mayor, I, too, will have a rosy view," said Stanley Tigerman, the well-known architect. "If he's not, I won't. Daley has become our 21st century Daniel Burnham."

Tigerman, like many others interviewed for this series, casts Daley as the rare political leader who has a larger vision of what a place can be, not only in terms of jobs and garbage pickup, but also in its ecological aesthetics -- its green spaces, river walks, boulevards and great architecture. Beyond that, Daley's admirers say, he turns those visions into reality.

"Others could be mayor, of course, but I doubt you'd see any proactive input from the city," Tigerman said. "It would only come from the developers, and we know the private sector cares only about money."

And there is the property-tax thing -- critics say it threatens to kill downtown growth. Property taxes run about $7.18 a square foot for downtown office space, according to the Building Owners & Managers Association. Property taxes in the suburbs outside Cook County run about $4 less a square foot. That being the case, a corporation looking to rent, say, 100,000 square feet could save $400,000 a year by choosing the suburbs over the Loop.

Improving public transit

"Unless Chicago and Cook County do something about property-tax reform, we'll have a pretty hard time attracting new business," said Ron Vukas, executive vice president of BOMA. "Can you think of any major corporation that has moved to Chicago in the last 20 years other than Boeing?"

Vacancy rates in downtown office buildings already stand at 18 percent or higher.

"My solution is to put together a dream team and identify industries and go after them with a vengeance," said Gerald J. Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. "How about Humana in Louisville? Create a package to bring them here. You gotta go after things."

And then there is the transportation thing. The 2020 Plan calls for "growth without gridlock" by making major -- and expensive -- improvements to downtown's public transportation system. The biggest enhancement would be a West Loop Transportation Center, along Clinton Street west of the Chicago River, where buses, trains and high-speed rail would converge. From there, commuters would board energy-efficient buses to travel briskly along dedicated roads to all parts of the downtown area.

"You need strong transit systems, or you could lose some assets," said MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council. "We've got great goals, but we're just not taking the steps we need to take. Like bus rapid transit -- a tool we're just not using. It would be a bus but feel more like rapid transit -- like the people-mover at O'Hare. The bus pulls up, and the whole side opens for passengers, and the light stays green, and it's great."

The Bean, as a symbol

In 1967, one Mayor Daley unveiled a statue that became an international symbol of Chicago -- the Picasso. But many of us couldn't make heads or tails of it. What kind of Chicago was this? In 2004, a second Mayor Daley first unveiled a statue that also is likely to become a symbol of Chicago -- The Bean. And this one we get.

The Bean is nothing less than a massive mirror. It reflects a Chicago delighted to look at itself.