U. of C. turning cherished garden into construction site

Sure, it looks a little scraggly at this time of year, but poke around amid the curling brown leaves and the shriveling tomato vines, and you'll find carrots, beets and turnips that are almost ready to be harvested.

"This is the kind of thing that people are hungry for in city living," Jack Spicer said Saturday, as he surveyed dozens of vegetable plots squeezed into a community garden at 61st and Dorchester in Hyde Park.

Unfortunately for Spicer, 62, and his fellow gardeners, the owner of the two-acre plot -- the University of Chicago -- is hungry to get it back. The university plans to use the land as a staging area for the new Chicago Theological Seminary building, slated for construction on the southeast edge of campus in the spring.

"I sit at a computer eight hours a day," said Avi Schwab, 27, admiring his plot on a sunny fall day as birds chirped in the distance and other gardeners gathered around a crackling wood fire. "Being able to come out here with a till and some shovels is really satisfying."

But Steve Kloehn, a university spokesman, said it has always been understood that "at some point, the university would need that land."

The university has offered to help the gardeners find new land, but, "to my knowledge, no one has responded to that offer," Kloehn said.

That's probably because the gardeners don't want to move. They say a unique community has developed around the garden, with a coffee shop that drops off its compost and a weekend farmers' market. The garden has hosted weddings, memorials, anniversaries.

"All kinds of people come here who would never have otherwise known each other," Spicer said.