Additional financing has been approved for the residential development at 547 W Oak Street in the Near North Side. Located on the intersection with N Larrabee Street, the proposal is the first phase of redeveloping a long-term vacant lot owned by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). The project is being led by developer BDM-I LLC made up of Brinshore & The Michaels Development Corporation.
547 W Oak Street via Google Maps
Area Plan For 547 W Oak Street Courtesy of Pappageorge Haymes Architecture
The initial RFI for the project was announced in 2015, receiving six entries before settling on the BDM-I LLC with local firm Pappageorge Haymes Partners working on its design. Since then the development team has secured a majority of the required funding and its zoning approval in 2021. Now this week the Community Development Commission has approved $14 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) money for the project.
Site Plan For 547 W Oak Street Courtesy of Pappageorge Haymes Architecture
Rising seven stories and roughly 80 feet in height, the roughly L-shaped structure will hug the corner with a one-story sitewide podium. Within the podium will be a 39-vehicle parking garage and 45-bicycle storage room. This will be joined by the residential lobby, single elevator, and community room as well as management office.
Rendering of 547 W Oak Street by Pappageorge Haymes Partners
The floors above will hold 78 mixed income residential units of which 54 will be considered affordable for those making 30 to 80 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), with the remaining 24 being market rate. The units themselves will consist of studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, and three-bedroom layouts, with rents ranging from $470 per month on the affordable side to $2,600 per month on the market rate side.
Elevation For 547 W Oak Street Courtesy of Pappageorge Haymes Architecture
Elevation For 547 W Oak Street Courtesy of Pappageorge Haymes Architecture
The structure itself will be clad in precast concrete accented by dark metal panels and stone, capped by an ornamental parapet. Overall the project will cost roughly $54 million and is being partially funded by bridge loans and other sources along with the aforementioned TIF. WARI-JLL Chicago Joint Venture will act as the general contractor and work is expected to commence in October 2024 and wrap up by the summer of 2026.
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2 years to build a 7 story building…okay.
This is usually because small projects like this have small construction teams, leading to longer construction periods. Whereas projects like St Regis or One Chicago have massive crews therefore essentially completing a highrise in the same amount of time. I live in Lakeview and it took about 2 years to build Optima on Broadway near me, which is also a 7 story building.
When will applications be accepted for This building?
Chicago Housing Authority has to be THE most useless and broken city department…
Max, to be fair, you’re selling the other departments short. They’re just as useless and broken.
The CHA isn’t actually a City department. It’s an independent agency, created via a Federal program. Its Board is appointed by the Mayor, so it has some of the same governance issues that other agencies have, but it’s not a part of the City.
I would rather say that they are very useful in their commitment to disincentivizing any development and growth in the city.
Have to ask – what about the Cabrini row houses directly behind this building? They’ve been boarded up for years – why not use the money to make them livable? If the row houses can’t be rehabbed, why not take them down and build on the land? Putting up nice new buildings while leaving other buildings (a lot of them!) boarded up doesn’t make sense. It feels like the CHA keeps punting the large parcels that are empty or full of vacant housing and just building on the smallest possible parcels to say they are doing something. I have no problem with public housing but I agree with Max, the CHA is really poorly run!
I believe those are still stuck in a lawsuit or may have just been cleared to redo like 6 months ago. Yeah, it has been 20 years of fighting over what to do with them.
The lots are extremely lucrative, they are between North Union and Halsted Pointe/Halsted Landing/Ballys and will most certainly be sold to fund police pensions after 2026. There are some annoying historical preservation groups pretending the Cabrini blight is historical and shouldn’t be demolished, but that’s nothing money can’t take care of.
tragic that its taken so long for CHA to even propose something on this lot, and even more tragic that there are acres upon acres of CHA land in this immediate area with no prospect whatsoever of being developed in the foreseeable future. this shows what a farce the “no housing unless its public housing” stance of so many left-NIMBYs is. It sounds nice on paper but effectively means no housing for anyone.
Couldn’t agree more, shame on the people who buy into and vote for this failed philosophy. But they won’t stop
In a less regulated free market, WAY more housing would have been built in this plot of land many years ago, and people of all backgrounds and income levels would be living here already
Looking at the pic, the address should be 999 N Larrabee St.
955 N Larrabee is the other name for this parcel.