Meanwhile negotiators from the city and the Community Task Force on Promontory Point have agreed to an engineering summit next month to address the feasibility and cost of a limestone restoration, and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has endorsed the community plan to preserve the limestone shoreline.

Federal legislation authorizing the Chicago Shoreline Reconstruction Project in 1994 included a memorandum of agreement with the IHPA stating that the form and material of the original limestone step revetment would be maintained, said Bill Wheeler, IHPA associate director. The state agency's agreement was required because federal funds were being used in an area deemed eligible for federal landmark status, and project contracts require IHPA approval. Wheeler said the agency had requested clarification on the issue months ago.

It was the "materials issue" -- limestone or concrete -- on which negotiations between the Community Task Force and the city, park district and Army Corps of Engineers stalled several months ago, after progress was made in other areas, said mediator Jamie Kalven. Now an early January meeting between a city engineering consultant, Task Force engineer Charles Shabica, and an engineer hired to assist Kalven is planned, followed by a report from Kalven and a community meeting.

In a recent letter to Mayor Daley, Jackson urged him "to consider a full endorsement of the preservation plan for Promontory Point," adding, "The communities of the South Side have acted strongly and passionately in advocating for this preservation, and it is a position which I fully endorse."

Task Force leader Jack Spicer and the group's preservation architect Frank Heitzman discussed the Task Force plan for limestone restoration at the Landmarks Preservation Council's monthly lecture series on Thursday, December 18, at 12:15 p.m. at the Chicago Cultural Center.