CHICAGO | General Developments

[thegoatman]

Does anybody know if the cabrini rowhomes are ever going to get torn down? They're a blight to the area and its not like its some architectural masterpiece.

[SolarWind]

September 12, 2022



October 20, 2022

[SolarWind]

October 20, 2022

[marothisu]

Zoning app up to build a new 32 unit building with 19,500 sq ft of ground floor commercial space in Chinatown at Princeton & 23rd Pl. The land has been vacant for 3 years, but before that it was 75% vacant/surface lot and a small residential building. The new building is set to rise 7 floors at a total height of 80 feet. A total of 34 parking spots (most indoors except for 7 in the alley). The developers are Chinese with an office in Bridgeport, so no outside gentrification on this one

https://chicago.legistar.com/Legislation...34-831E14F1FF6A&Options=Advanced&Search=

[Randomguy34]

^ It's been interesting seeing zoning apps in Chinatown the past few years propose several mixed-use developments on its side streets. Chicago's Chinatown has always been more suburban than the ones on the East and West Coast, but now we're seeing the area densify

[left of center]

I wouldn't exactly say suburban, as the area is primarily 2 and 3 flats as opposed to SFH on large lots, so its still fairly dense.

Having said that, you do bring up a good point. Its interesting that Chicago's Chinatown may come off as less dense compared to other cities, simply because of its location. It's about 2 miles south of downtown, whereas in other cities Chinatowns are much closer to the city core. In SF its just west of downtown, in NY its just north of lower Manhattan, in Philly its within Center City, same with LA, Boston, etc. They are all within walking distance of the center of those cities. In retrospect, this has turned out to be a good thing for Chicago, because all these cities are seeing their traditional Chinatowns go into decline as pricing pressure has pushed the locals out and new Chinese immigrants are not moving there anymore, opting for cheaper neighborhoods and/or suburbs. In Chicago however, Chinatown continues to grow because prices are still affordable and has remained a gateway for new Chinese immigrants.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

^ It's been interesting seeing zoning apps in Chinatown the past few years propose several mixed-use developments on its side streets. Chicago's Chinatown has always been more suburban than the ones on the East and West Coast, but now we're seeing the area densify

There's been others, are zoning change requests but I haven't really seen any of them get built. I think there was another 7 story proposal in Chinatown in the same area like 4 years ago but it never happened (pretty sure it's not this one but.....maybe I'm wrong).

The Chinatowns in NYC, SF, Boston, DC, and Philadelphia being a bit more urban makes sense as those people are from Hong Kong and from older times. Chicago too but for whatever reason it's like half urban. The newer immigrants (last 15-20 years) like my wife grew up completely differently. There's a reason why there's a number of Chinese people who live in South Loop for example (seriously looks like parts of China in a few cities I've been to big time). And then there's areas like the eastern part of Lincoln Park which kind of represents both a fairly urban but nice area like in the "suburban" (but still more urban than a lot of the US) districts of China ....and also I-55 areas like Bridgeport and central/western parts of Lincoln Park which are more suburban on the residential streets which represents an idea of suburbs (in a good way).

I would love to see Chinatown itself densify with a lot more 7+ story building which is the way that Flushing went (which looks a hell of a lot more like mainland China these days than Manhattan Chinatown does). But IMO areas like South Loop will continue to attract mainlanders to live in, instead of Chinatown itself. Chinatown doesn't have as many nice residential places and South Loop is pretty close. But if they started building more stuff like this 7+ story building in Chinatown proper, I bet it would be pretty damn popular and steal some of the business from South Loop.

[Mr Downtown]

Three other factors:

Structural drift (sway in the wind) is much greater with steel, and people find that unsettling in a million-dollar condo.

Vibration and sound transmission is much easier to control with concrete frame. Again, not so important in an office tower; vital when selling big-bucks condos.

Speed to occupancy is greater with steel, and that can be an important, little-understood factor in putting together an office project. If you're trying to land a big law or accounting firm as your anchor tenant, they'll generally want to move in no more that 18 months after signing a lease you can show to the bank in order to get the construction loan. That may push you into doing steel, even if it's 20 percent more expensive.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

new fire/police academy and boys/girls club on the west side

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2...chicago-police-reform-west-garfield-park

As a 2019 Trib article points out, this new facility frees up a number of near-downtown sites.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-cb-joint-police-fire-training-academy-chicago-htmlstory.html

There's the Near North High School site at Larrabee/Clybourn, which is pitched for the next phase of CHA development at Cabrini.

There's the current police academy at 1300 W Jackson, which is a PRIME West Loop development site for residential. This could be sold to private developers, or possibly used as expansion for Skinner or Whitney Young (which also benefits downtown development, in a general sense). The worst option is that they turn it into a new police precinct house for West Loop. There will be pressure to do this from nervous-Nelly West Loopers who think it will stop carjackings or something.

There's the fire academy at Jefferson and DeKoven - built on the site where the Great Chicago Fire started. I don't expect anything great to happen here, DPD seems intent on locking this area into suburban chain retail and light industrial only.

Then a few other miscellaneous smaller sites.

The current police and fire academies are both cool Modernist buildings, but something tells me that left-leaning preservationists won't be clamoring to save police and cop buildings.

[BVictor1]

10.23.22

63rd & Maryland




6300 Block of S. Evans, looking SW




NE corner of 63rd & Evans. What was a beauty supply store has been rehabbed and expanded into a clinic.

[zolk]

Andersonville Trader Joe's proposal

- Drive-thru ATM and 9 parking spots for US Bank along Ashland/Summerdale. (requesting RS-3 to B1-2 zoning change to accommodate drive-thru ATM, which replaces an already-demolished SFH).
- Roughly 50 roof top parking spaces for Trader Joe's with entrance along Summerdale.







Current conditions:

[thegoatman]

ugly suburban 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 land use. Should be mixed use with TJ's at the bottom.

[Steely Dan]

ugly, under-sized, and a terrible site plan.

the 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 redevelopment tri-fecta!

[thegoatman]

This would be fit for Mt. Greenwood or Beverly, not a lakefront community. Really wishing this falls thru and they go back to the drawing board asap

[Kngkyle]

Awful. I'm optimistic the Andersonville community will rally to kill this. The current site is even worse, true, but this is hardly much of an improvement.

[gandalf612]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

Awful. I'm optimistic the Andersonville community will rally to kill this. The current site is even worse, true, but this is hardly much of an improvement.

Not likely, even the usually NIMBY Facebook group is largely positive towards it

[Jibba]

Originally Posted by gandalf612

Not likely, even the usually NIMBY Facebook group is largely positive towards it

Because Trader Joe's, with their contrived goofball brand image, has somehow convinced people that it's a groovy, bohemian purveyor of good food, and people associate it with a certain air of progressiveness. (When in reality it's bad produce shipped halfway across the Western hemisphere and aisles and aisles and aisles of refined-sugar snacks.)

[ardecila]

US Bank owns the land. Without their buy-in, there's no redevelopment, and they clearly want to maintain a drive-thru even if it's smaller than what they have now. This may not be great but it's a big improvement over the existing. I think with a few architectural tweaks this could be a nice building (faux clerestory windows above the canopies so that brick 2nd story is less massive).

If the drive-thru ever becomes un-necessary, then it should be pretty easy to split off that parcel and develop it into an apartment building.

There seems to be a trend of this earlier generation of neighborhood banks shedding their excess real estate, which is a good thing. Often for grocery stores - 5/3 at Clark/Belmont, 5/3 at Western/Lawrence, 5/3 at Damen/Irving, etc. Banks just don't need the big parking lots they used to.

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by ardecila

There seems to be a trend of this earlier generation of neighborhood banks shedding their excess real estate, which is a good thing. Often for grocery stores - 5/3 at Clark/Belmont, 5/3 at Western/Lawrence, 5/3 at Damen/Irving, etc.

5/3 in Printers Row at Clark/Harrison is dying for redevelopment (please soon). It's been out of place since the day it was built.

[gebs]

Originally Posted by ithakas

5/3 in Printers Row at Clark/Harrison is dying for redevelopment (please soon). It's been out of place since the day it was built.

Yes, please. Especially since it has the new IMPRINT development to the south and the new Southbank developments to the west.