For city’s next growth spurt, follow the money to north-northwest corridor

A few years ago — when Donald Trump was just a developer and “slacking” in the workplace was a fireable offense — the office building at 350 N. Orleans St. afforded a great perch from which to ponder the future of Chicago.

Looking from west-facing windows of what used to be the Chicago Sun-Times’ offices was like being on a cliff’s edge of downtown skyscrapers, peering onto an urban valley. The hunkered-down buildings of Fulton Market, Chicago’s old meat and produce district, were in immediate view, including a formidable cold-storage warehouse that later became the Chicago base for Google.

As a speculative investment, the Google deal kicked off a development rush that in the past few years has made Fulton Market and the Near West Side the hottest growth area in Chicago. With the offices came restaurants and apartments. Blocks that Chicagoans used to regard as a Skid Row melded into the greater downtown. The private market made that happen, but City Hall egged it on with zoning changes that allowed bigger projects.

As the city rolls into 2023, the picture changes. Chicago, while on the move, is still groggy from the pandemic, a civic episode of “long COVID” as measured by the persistence of hybrid work schedules and lagging use of public transit. The pandemic changed our relationship with urban life in ways we’re still figuring out.

But people still want to be and build here, so where will Chicago’s next growth spurt be?

There have been no official pronouncements, but the pattern is clear. Chicago’s next batch of new high-rises will be north and northwest of downtown. Starting from West Town and running through Goose Island toward west Lincoln Park, the city’s growth will radiate along the North Branch of the Chicago River, expanding what we think of as “downtown” toward Wicker Park and Bucktown. It will happen because private investors have ordained it with the help of city policymakers.

The biggest example is Lincoln Yards, developer Sterling Bay’s decades-long plan to spend possibly $6 billion converting 53 acres of old industrial property into a live-work megalopolis. The first building, for life sciences research, is a few months from completion, and others will follow as demand dictates. It seems far off, but it’ll start taking shape before you know it.

Sterling Bay

For a more near-term example, there’s the city’s decision in early May to replace the Chicago Tribune printing site with a Bally’s casino, a $1.7 billion wager that could be placed once state licensing approval comes in.

But that’s hardly all that’s going on in that north-northwest corridor. The casino deal has spun off other plans nearby. Developer Jeffrey Shapack, a major investor in Fulton Market, shifted a few blocks northward to grab several properties south of the Ohio Street feeder ramp. They would be almost next door to the casino site. Shapack got the city’s OK in October for 2,200 residences and a boutique hotel on what had been a neglected nook with a Salvation Army center.

Developer Onni Group reportedly is in line to buy part of the Tribune site that’s north of Chicago Avenue. Whatever it builds there would be sandwiched between the casino and the south end of Goose Island, where Onni already has been approved for a five-tower project of homes and hotel rooms, potentially a $1.3 billion investment over 20 years, replacing a maintenance building for Greyhound buses.

Onni Group

Turning east of the Brown Line, James Letchinger’s JDL Development has 8 acres on the Near North Side that belonged to the Moody Bible Institute and were little used. He plans to bring Gold Coast-type density to the area west of Wells Street and mostly from north of Oak to Chestnut streets, adding perhaps 2,680 residences, although he was praised for how he worked with the community to repurpose old buildings and provide parks. Letchinger’s city approvals came in 2021.

If you get the idea these parts are heading “uptown” — upscale, in other words — you’d be right. Developers are meeting requirements for affordable housing, mostly by incorporating them into market-rate projects, but this is an expansion of the city for the rich. It’s what gets developers’ hearts thumping.

Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture

There’s a danger this new-age gentrification will widen the divide in Chicago, with privileged areas getting resources and other neighborhoods being left behind, but the die is cast.

“It’s clear what developers want. We’ve been seeing a desire to be near the river on the North Side,” said Christina Harris, director of land use and planning for the Metropolitan Planning Council. She sees it as the high-end market taking care of things, while city officials try to be creative to draw attention elsewhere.

The north-northwest passage is in demand because land is available, it’s near the Loop and transportation nodes, and maybe most importantly, it’s close to established and emerging wealthy neighborhoods. Building offices close to them offers a short commute, something the pandemic may have taught us to prize. The city has helped with riverfront improvements designed for beautification and public access.

To balance things out, the city has mandated set-asides for affordable housing, which has created apartments for people who otherwise couldn’t afford the area. The city encourages additional housing construction near transit lines and has expanded a program to unload vacant lots it owns on the South and West sides.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s signature Invest South/West plan, a cagey marketing scheme that directs developer attention to commercial corridors ripe for improvement, has celebrated three groundbreakings.

“The city is trying to be thoughtful in areas that don’t typically see direct investment,” Harris said.

The road ahead is long and with lots of detours. Changes in the economy and in political priorities will affect the growth trajectory. But Chicago, for all its troubles, is pushing ahead, finding a way. Those big shoulders help.