Since the de-industrialization of South Chicago's once inaccessible shoreline from the late 1970s on, East 87th Street has been extended to Lake Michigan with the look and feel of a landscaped boulevard. The former Southworks site brownfield, an area larger than the Loop, is a cleared and remediated table of slag and concrete, currently being transformed into Chicago's newest lakefront park with the feel of wide open prairie land. The purchase of the property from notable world-class developers, has put South Chicago at the center of the city's, and the Nation's largest lakefront redevelopment effort in the 21st century. Mixed residential, retail and lake recreation are quietly planned. The new lakefront park, as yet nameless (which is nearing completion), was the missing link effectively closing the century-old gap between Chicago's world-class chain of parks between South Shore's Rainbow Beach Park in South Shore and Calumet Park in East Side neighborhoods, fulfilled the dreams of noted Chicago planner and architect, Daniel Burnham and business mogul and philanthropist Montgomery Ward (both of the Gilded Age), for a free and clear lakefront.