CHICAGO | 1200 W Fulton | 600 - 700 FT | ~50 FLOORS

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This would be Fulton Market's biggest project yet

A massive, $600 million development calls for office and lab space, apartments, a hotel and a big fitness center in the red-hot Fulton Market District.

January 12, 2022 01:07 PM UPDATED 18 MINUTES AGO
ALBY GALLUN

A Chicago developer is getting ready to unveil plans for a $600 million mixed-use project in the Fulton Market District, the biggest real estate development to date in the fast-growing neighborhood.

Fulton Street Cos. wants to build office and lab space, apartments, a hotel and a big fitness center on a site at 1200 W. Fulton St., said Alex Najem, the firm’s founder and CEO. The 1.5-million-square-foot project underscores Najem’s unbridled exuberance for Fulton Market, a neighborhood that shook off the pandemic last year and is booming once again, with developers starting new apartment towers and businesses gobbling up office space. Fulton Street itself is getting ready to break ground on a 34-story apartment tower across the street and is close to lining up an anchor tenant for a 530,000-square-foot office building it plans about five blocks east, Najem said.

Najem has cleared one big hurdle: buying the development site. A Fulton Street venture recently paid $42 million for the 2-acre property at the northwest corner of Fulton Street and Racine Avenue, he said. Next up: Fulton Street plans to present its proposal for the site next month to the Chicago Department of Planning & Development’s Committee on Design, he said.

But he’s is teaming up on the project with some well-established, deep-pocketed partners: Chris Merrill, the co-founder and CEO of Chicago-based real estate investment firm Harrison Street Real Estate Capital; and Shanna Khan, the daughter of Shahid Kahn, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Flex-N-Gate, a big auto supplier based in Urbana.

The development will include 500 apartments and 200 hotel rooms in a roughly 50-story tower; a 25-story, 500,000-square-foot office building; and a 10-story, 200,000-square-foot building catering to life sciences companies, Najem said. The fitness center would encompass 200,000 square feet.

“We feel comfortable that the community as well as the city is amenable to height as long as there is significant green space on the ground level,” he said.
Chicago-based Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture is designing the project, with Morris Adjmi Architects of New York playing a consulting role, Najem said.