The City of Chicago has issued a permit for the demolition of a five-story masonry building located at 1130 S Wabash Avenue in South Loop. The demolition will be carried out by Atlas Industries, Inc., a Chicago-based general contractor.
The demolition process is part of a plan by the property owner, SBY Wabash LLC. Cornerstone Permit Company, also based in Chicago, expedited the demolition permit process.
The project, valued at $750,000, involves the complete removal of the existing structure. With a total cost of $2,250 for the demolition permit, this project marks a significant change for the 1130 S Wabash Avenue location. This step likely paves the way for future development on the site, though specific plans for the property following demolition have not been disclosed at this time.
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I’ve said this before, but demolition of an existing property shouldn’t be permitted without a new building to replace it ready to go. This downgrades the level of taxes that this property owner pays into the city and creates new blight for sometimes a significant period of time.
Anyone else think so too?
I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Many cities actually have started actively demolishing buildings to reduce blight (like Baltimore and Detroit). The issue can be that an owner will allow a building to fall into dangerous disrepair. I think the bigger issue is getting rid of financial incentives to leave a parcel vacant, rather than prohibiting demolitions.
Just because plans aren’t public doesn’t mean there’s no plans. The owners of this building own the hotels just north on Wabash. This includes the brand new high rise they built in 2019. I’m pretty sure they have plans for this especially as they took out a mortgage on the property for 4X greater than what they purchased it for.
I doubt the developer would spend $750k to demolish a working building unless they had plans to infill it right away. That building was a storage business, so it must’ve been generating some income. That being said, there is the idea for a “land value” based property tax, which taxes the value of the land and not what’s on it, which would discourage empty lots in towns and cities, because the taxes would be too high to support an empty lot or low value use in a dense city.
Another sickening demolition of a beautiful old building. Something tells me this’ll be a parking lot for the next 10 years– as if South Loop doesn’t have enough of those already. The City needs to tax undeveloped lots downtown at higher rates than buildings.
Correction to post stating this is a storage business – it is not. The Public Storage is next door. This is apartments/condos.
Screw this gutless city; enabling profit motive to destroy its very soul.
Probably some of the most beautiful south loop lofts left…if I’m correct I’ve been there.
My mistake on this being a storage business. I was thinking of 1255 S Wabash. My comment about property taxes still holds. I can’t imagine a building like that would be demolished to be left an empty site or go to parking, as it’s too narrow to become a surface lot. It is too bad that it will most likely be replaced with something not as architecturally interesting.
There are literally parking lots and horrific buildings everywhere and this is what they choose to demolish.
So a developer can just go to a parking lot and scoop it up just because? People/companies own those parking lots. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean the parking lot owners are selling. You make it sound so easy. You may want to learn something about real estate development and purchasing property even.
1132 (South building in picture)will be next. This technique is used to devalue the site, cut insurance costs, and then lower the starting value of the TIF they will seek, if not already in place. Look around at the new high rise structures adjacent and across the street. I don’t believe these are historical represented structures.
The owners of the building took out a $16.5M mortgage on it a year ago. They purchased it in 2020 for $4M. The built the 30 story hotel just a half block north of this on the same street a handful of years ago. They own Whitehall in Gold Coast and other hotels. They definitely have actual plans for this site.
I count at least 6 parking lots on Wabash within 2 blocks of this. Beyond ridiculous to demolish this beautiful building to build a high rise. So idiotic. Even for the developer, wouldn’t it make more sense to build on a parking lot than to tear this down?