CHICAGOLAND | Urban Development in the Burbs

[the urban politician]

Great read. A lot going on here, with a shift in mindset towards density, mixed uses. I recommend reading the whole article but I included an excerpt:

Burk said the village’s planning process leading to this decision was consistent with what UrbanStreet Group and its partner in the redevelopment, Trilogy Investments, envisioned for the site: a need for density, diversity of uses and walkability. Burk sees the village’s decision as validation. “We purchased the site without zoning based on the belief Schaumburg would be on board,” Burk said of the 14-month process. UrbanStreet Group This aerial rendering shows the boundaries of UrbanStreet Group's planned redevelopment of the former Motorola Solutions campus in Schaumburg.

Burk envisions the campus with heavy multifamily and office density, along with complementary uses like entertainment and hospitality.

Last month, UrbanStreet Group and Trilogy secured $30.1M in financing from Pangea Mortgage Capital and T2 Capital Management. Burk said that money is earmarked toward demolishing most of the manufacturing buildings on the site, and redeveloping a 350K SF vacant office building into smaller floor plate, open office space. UrbanStreet Group expects to break ground on a 260-unit loft-style apartment building this summer, and expects other parcels of the site to go under contract over the next six months.

This is a major pendulum shift. Burk said the suburbs were originally formulated to segregate uses. In the post-World War II economic boom, veterans fled urban environments in waves to start families and careers, and suburban real estate development in the 1950s and '60s was dominated by mass-produced housing, shopping malls and sprawling low- to mid-rise office campuses. Today, demand from millennials reinvented downtown business districts into 24/7 live-work-play areas, often at the expense of the suburbs.

Chicago is lagging other major markets in suburban development activity. The majority of the 2.4M SF in new office inventory coming to Chicago this year is held in three downtown buildings: 151 North Franklin, 625 West Adams and McDonald’s new West Loop headquarters. That bucks a national trend of new office construction shifting from urban cores to the suburbs. Schaumburg’s decision to allow more density on the Motorola Solutions site allows UrbanStreet Group to create amenities that are attractive to support the worker base.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/chicago/news/...medium=Browser