Developer Sterling Bay has announced the sale of their property at 345 N Aberdeen Street in the West Loop. Bound by W Carroll Avenue to the south and rail tracks to the north, the site currently holds the Cougle Commission Company factory. The developer has brought on real estate company JLL to sell the property for them.
Site context map of 345 N Aberdeen Street via Google Maps
Hand drawn rendering of Cougle facility via Cougle Commission Company
The Cougle Commission Company dates back to 1873 when four brothers from the Cougle family formed the company. They grew over the years to process various meats including poultry, and in 1980 they moved their production facility to the growing meatpacking neighborhood. The two-story plant was funded by an industrial revenue bond, the first of its kind in Chicago.
Presentation of 345 N Aberdeen Street via JLL
The 48,000-square-foot property is currently zoned for industrial use with the 17,500-square-foot building. It was purchased by Sterling Bay in 2021 for $20.8 million though never announced a specific project for it and Cougle continued to use the facility. Sterling Bay plans to rezone the site to DX-7 prior to the sale closing, this will allow for residential with an increased FAR of 11.5 according to the JLL website.
Presentation of 345 N Aberdeen Street via JLL
Site images of 345 N Aberdeen Street via JLL
The updated zoning will allow for 556,404 square feet of buildable space, or potentially 559 residential units. Whoever buys the property will have to demolish the Cougle building themselves, with the site’s proximity to the Google headquarters and other major residential developments being a major selling point. Currently a price for the property has not been set.
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The property is announced as “For Sale.”
The owner of the property is not announcing the “Sale” of the property .
The following is a poorly constructed sentence: ‘The property is announced as “For Sale.”’. It uses the passive voice (who is doing the announcing?), and the word “as” is substituted for the more effective words “to be”.
Not sure what is meant by this – “Sterling Bay plans to rezone the site to DX-7 prior to the sale closing, this will allow for residential with an increased FAR of 11.5…”?
A developer doesn’t rezone a site; they present an application to the City for rezoning typically based upon an actual project proposal and the City rezones the site if approved. This is not guaranteed, as it goes through a process of community engagement, planning department review and approval, city council approvals, etc. Also, a DX-7 zoning designation means an FAR of 7.0, not an automatic increase to 11.5. An increase requires a ‘planned development’ approval, which is not a given.
Also, the JLL property “presentation” calculations indicate 442,500 rentable SF and 681,000 gross SF of residential. This represents a 65% efficiency factor, which is terribly low. If based on an actual design layout, must be a terrible design as well.