Near West Side’s profit lure outlasts the pandemic’s lull

Wander the sidewalks of the Near West Side, and it’s easy to get an eerie sensation. It’s almost like a “Twilight Zone” episode about a place with evidence of human habitation right there, maybe just around the corner, and yet you don’t see anybody.

It’s just the mind playing tricks, after all. Whatever name applies — West Loop, Fulton Market, West Town — the region was Chicago’s busiest place for development and an extension of downtown’s commercial might.

It’s hushed now, as people are still staying out of offices. With capacity limits in place, restaurants are groggily stirring to life, but there is still less reason than before to be out and about, even with the weather easing up.

Look closer, though, at the signs of ongoing investment, and the neighborhood gives off a different vibe. Having recoiled in the pandemic, parts look ready to spring back to business.

At Jackson Boulevard and Racine Avenue, the former home of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has been torn down, and work has started on a seven-story residential building that seeks a different path. Much West Loop housing can feel like well-appointed crash pads for postgraduates working nearby. But this project is aimed at wealthy buyers who want space, be they families or empty nesters arriving from the suburbs.

It’s a project by Chicago-based Belgravia Group. The pandemic has caused some developers to retrench, but Belgravia co-CEO David Goldman said he’s building now because buyers want it. He said he’s got sales contracts on almost half the 72 units. Three-bedroom, 2,160-square-foot units start at $837,900, and a four-bedroom duplex with a rooftop terrace goes for $1.68 million.

“The West Loop has continued to provide a tremendous amount of energy. We have buyers that have signed contracts, and we’re going to deliver their homes,” he said. “I tell people that to do what I do for a living, you need what I call pathological optimism.” The first deliveries are expected in mid-2022.

Change happens. Hubbard Street Dance was a neighborhood fixture but it saw a good chance to sell. A spokesman said the company is looking for a new home, with a recently hired artistic director having a say. It’s basically operating from a Milwaukee Avenue mail drop. For a performing arts company, being homeless in a pandemic isn’t the worst thing.

Several blocks north of the Belgravia project, developer Sterling Bay, never one to let the sun set on opportunity, is tearing down an old Archer Daniels Midland grain mill and silos at 1300 W. Carroll Ave.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

According to Preservation Chicago, the operation that ADM left in 2019 dates from 1897. Sterling Bay has no development plan or zoning in mind for the property. That stuff can wait. What’s important now is to clear the site and make it ready for improved demand, if that happens.

Preservation Chicago decried the demolition of what it called historic buildings, but area residents haven’t raised an outcry. The developer claims the buildings are too dilapidated to be saved. In any case, Chicago has been ripping out its industrial sinew for a long time. Why stop here? The city’s Fulton-Randolph landmark district already protects much of what’s worthwhile.

Sterling Bay, meanwhile, has filed a zoning application for 160 N. Morgan St., where it wants to build 320 apartments. It’s the site of an old bank branch that briefly was a Gucci pop-up store a year ago.

Sun-Times file

On the western fringe of Fulton Market, the developer Marquette has projects under way around Union Park. Now it’s proposing another, a 210-unit building at 140 N. Ashland Ave., next to the L stop and overlooking the park, which is becoming a development magnet. If people concerned about gentrification aren’t careful, Union Park could get North Side-ish in surrounding density and outlooks. The new residents might tell the Pitchfork Music Festival someday to turn down the amps or go somewhere else.

Open space has become coveted over much of the Near West Side. A revised city development plan clearly calls for more residents, and people need parks so the kids can run around. Planners have not identified city-owned land that can be converted to that purpose. Developers may need to band together to provide a park.

Or, there’s an idea that’s been bandied around for years: building a landscaped cap over the Kennedy Expressway for maybe two or three blocks. Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) mentioned it at February’s meeting of the Chicago Plan Commission, which endorsed revised guidelines for growth in Fulton Market. Burnett sees tax-increment financing as a funding source for the Kennedy cap. It’s a gift for a self-sufficient central area when neighborhoods are looking for scraps.

But a lot of things are possible on the Near West Side, where change and investment are still hard at work, if a little subdued.

Scott Sarver/RATIO Architects