CHICAGO | General Developments

[PKDickman]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

I could use a good primer on the affordable housing fund. From what I can tell, downtown area residential needs to either provide affordable housing or contribute money to a fund that will help provide it. I don't remember seeing any new developments that haven't opted to contribute to the fund. I imagine things would be different if the fund contribution weren't an option.

It's is changing. I believe it was approved at the last council meeting.
I only got time to skim the new version, but I failed to save a copy and The bookmark is broken.

But the old one went like this:
Any residential project who gets a zoning change that , increases floor area or adds residential to a site where it wasn't allowed, or a project that gets government land or government money, is required to provide 10% of its units (20% if you get both zoning and government money). This is all districts.

However, in the downtown districts you can opt for 25% of increased floor area instead 10% total units.

In the neighborhoods, you can provide the units on site or make a one time payment of $100,000 per required unit.
In downtown districts you can provide the units on site or make a one time payment equal to 80% of the local land price per buildable foot times the total extra square footage granted to your project by the zoning change.

The city supposed to keep track of market land prices, but the last list I saw was in the range of $30-$50 a buildable foot.

Just to be clear, as of right projects have no requirement to provide affordable housing, but, downtown, they may opt in for floor area bonuses.

This is changing.
As I remember from my skim, 25% of the required Aff Units must be provided on site (or nearby in downtown) and provisions were added for zoning changes used for increased density and not for FAR.

[wierdaaron]

Oh I see, it's hinged on getting zoning concessions. "You can build more than you're zoned for, but you have to pony up to the housing fund."

How is that fund being used? Subsidize private developments outside of downtown? Mob bribes? TIF injections? Obama libraries? Asian carp?

[PKDickman]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Oh I see, it's hinged on getting zoning concessions. "You can build more than you're zoned for, but you have to pony up to the housing fund."

How is that fund being used? Subsidize private developments outside of downtown? Mob bribes? TIF injections? Obama libraries? Asian carp?

It is supposed to make loans to build or rehab for affordable housing citywide or provide assistance money or make up the difference between market rate and affordable owner occupied for qualifying owners.

But it seems to be run by a bunch of bureaucrats who are stumbling around like John Cleese in the upper class twit of the year competition.

All the developers chose to make in lieu of payments, because the payments are ridiculously under priced.

[harryc]

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by PKDickman

All the developers chose to make in lieu of payments, because the payments are ridiculously under priced.

Bingo. If your payment is $100000 and construction costs $150 per square foot, you can only build a 650sf unit.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

You're kidding me right? Harbor Square and Park Row both have actual gates to enter the block. Heck, none of the units in Harbor Square even have a single non emergency exit means of egress to a public street.

I'm not familiar with Park Row, but with Harbor Square you clearly chose the exception rather than the rule.

[PKDickman]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Bingo. If your payment is $100000 and construction costs $150 per square foot, you can only build a 650sf unit.

$100,000 is the market value of an apartment that rents for only about $700 a month.
Nobody is building any of those.
Even the affordable rents are higher than that.

[i_am_hydrogen]

Nice work, harry. The glass looks really good in those shots.

[Mr Downtown]

Power center to replace Evergreen Plaza

The Plaza, the aging and nearly vacant mall in Evergreen Park, will be torn down and replaced with an outdoor mall featuring 30 to 40 stores, village officials announced this week.

Two development companies, one from suburban Detroit and one from Tampa, have formed Evergreen Park Developers, which plans to build the Evergreen Park Marketplace. Stores would be built along the west side of the property, facing Western Avenue, with four outlots intended for restaurants, according to the developer.

Full story in The Southtown

[LouisVanDerWright]

Speaking of retail: The developers of New City (Structured) are back again this time with a considerably less heinous and overtly auto-oriented plan:

New City developer pushes forward with nearby project
By Alby Gallun

The developer of the New City mixed-use project on the North Side is moving forward with plans for an $80 million office and retail development a block away.

Chicago-based Structured Development filed plans with the city for the 213,000-square-foot building at the corner of Kingsbury and Blackhawk streets, just west of New City, the big apartment-retail complex set to open this fall. Both projects are in the Clybourn Corridor, the booming shopping strip on the edge of Lincoln Park where Structured has been especially active.

The new project would include 103,000 square feet of retail space, and the firm has talked with a major retailer that could occupy about half the space, said Structured Principal J. Michael Drew. Many national retailers, including Apple, Target and REI, already have stores in the Clybourn Corridor, but a lot more want to get in, he said.

“It's an established, mature retail corridor,” he said. “The demographics and density are already there. It's a really easy marketing effort to say, 'Here is the next available site if you want to be in this market.'”

More here:http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...nearby-project

Considering that the project is 213,000 SF and only 103,000 SF of retail, one wonders what the other half of the project is. Residential? Office? Massive parking garage?

In any case, it's a lot less ugly than their previous effort:

[the urban politician]

^ It looks like this will replace an existing building but also an empty lot.

It's definitely a positive development, but what pisses me off about North/Clybourn is that it's always a 2 step forward/1 step back deal with this area. Finally you get quality developments and then they go and build that Buybuy Baby strip center bullshit just down the street.

I wish for once we could just put suburban style strip centers behind us in this little district. It's bad enough that so many were built--they may not be redeveloped for another 30 years, if ever. Hell, look at the Kmart development near Milwaukee and Ashland, instead of being demo'd and replaced it's going to see new life with brand new leases. These strip centers are like a cancer on the city, they just DON'T DIE, so stop building them.

[munchymunch]

Looks like 625 west Monroe is off the market.

http://601-625westmonroe.com

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Considering that the project is 213,000 SF and only 103,000 SF of retail, one wonders what the other half of the project is. Residential? Office? Massive parking garage?

In any case, it's a lot less ugly than their previous effort:

It says office and retail in the first line of the quote you posted

[wierdaaron]

Originally Posted by munchymunch

Looks like 625 west Monroe is off the market.

http://601-625westmonroe.com

Wasn't Fifield supposed to build a highrise there? Or with no capped Kennedy is he taking his ball and leaving?

[Jibba]

Originally Posted by harryc

The ground floor of the annex is a confused mess. Nothing about it is resolved well, especially where those fake salvaged piers interact with the west facade. I can't conceive of a rationale that motivated the decision to simulate historic pieces. Was it solely for street-level 'continuity' with the warehouse? The appeal of preserving the warehouse while emphasizing the modern repurposing of it (the glass west wall) is that multiple eras are embodied, and that imbues the structure with qualities of endurance and adaptability and also exhibits the evolution of society. The inverse isn't true: Taking a new structure and appending ersatz old forms doesn't communicate the same thing--the narrative is perceptibly false, especially when the ratio of current to "old" is exceedingly high, such as the case of only "salvaging" the stubs "old" structural supports (the further irony being that the "piers" of the original warehouse weren't structural themselves). Not to belabor this point, but I find the aesthetic and the conceit extremely unpleasant.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by rlw777

It says office and retail in the first line of the quote you posted

Lol, opps, somehow I skimmed right over that. I didn't expect office in this location though it will probably only be "office" meaning doctors and dentists and the likes. 100,000 SF is a huge chunk of office for this far out from downtown though. Very interesting...

[munchymunch]

Originally Posted by wierdaaron

Wasn't Fifield supposed to build a highrise there? Or with no capped Kennedy is he taking his ball and leaving?

This beauty actually.

[wierdaaron]

Yeah, that's how I remembered it. A compacted Sears Tower.

I wish I knew what the hell was going on with all that land between the river and the Kennedy. The further-west west loop is hopping, the further-east loop loop is hopping, but nobody was able to figure out a deal for all that land in the middle?

Maybe it being off the market means someone with real plans bought it. With that Hotel/Office just announced on the other side of Presidential Towers, perhaps other developers are getting brave enough to step into that area. I swear with those huge, undeveloped blocks you could have a mini development boom right there.

[LouisVanDerWright]

It's just a fantasy, but this is EXACTLY what should be done to the vast industrial wastelands near downtown along the river over the next half century or so. We've already been gradually progressing in that direction, but we need to accelerate it with intense redevelopment of sites like Crawford, Fisk, Finkle, and the Damen Silos. All these parcels should become mixed use with generous public spaces (parks and prominades) along the river and slips withdense, mixed use, development on the remainder of these sites.

The city is apparently looking for public input on the future of the river. The above is a concept of lagoons, public spaces, and private development done by Studio Gang.

http://blog.archpaper.com/2015/03/ch...chicago-river/

[Randomguy34]

^This reminds me a lot of the skyscrapers that loom over the lakes in Asia. Ey, if this does end up happening over the next few decades then we might as well call Lake Calumet, Chi-na (pun on Chi-town and China)