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Originally Posted by twister244
Makes sense, and thanks for the insightful response. Still though, what's to stop someone from building a much taller residential building a few blocks off the lake where you get views of the lake still above a certain floor? I suspect there just isn't enough demand and market forces to justify such an endeavor for developers.
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The lakefront is the densest part of Chicago and there is high density even a few blocks off of it. I'm not sure how familiar you are with these areas but the buildings in areas like East Lincoln Park, Lakeview East, etc are at least decently well maintained and there's always high demand to live in these areas. We are talking about tracts of 50k- 80k+ ppsm that are in high demand with not much land available. It's akin to some fairly high density places in Queens for example (like some parts of Jackson Heights for example). The real opportunities to build up are pretty much on streets like Broadway where there are 1 or 2 story commercial buildings that could probably have a much easier time being redeveloped versus a 5 story 50 unit building in totally fine condition with constant demand for tenants.
And of course this has already happened with a variety of sites in Lakeview, Uptown, etc on Broadway. Are they tall enough to see the lake? No, but they are all mid rises and small high rises popping up there.