Plans are moving forward for the residential conversion of the historic fireproof warehouse at 3240 West Lawrence Avenue in Albany Park. The five-story building is located just west of the intersection with North Sawyer Avenue, a few steps from the CTA Brown Line Kimball station. The project has now received approval from local Alderwoman Rodriguez.
Site context map of 3740 W Lawrence Ave via Google Maps
Efforts for the project are being led by APZ Holdings LLC, along with local firm Red Architects. The 1916-built structure will have its brick and terracotta façade preserved, with windows on the upper levels widened to match those on the lower floors along both the streetfront and alley face. No additional exterior work is expected.
Floor plans of W Lawrence Ave via Google Maps
The redevelopment plans call for 3,000 square feet of divisible streetfront retail space, along with bike storage, a large lobby, and two residential units on the ground floor. The remaining levels will contain additional units, bringing the total to 26 residences made up of 12 one-bedroom and 14 two-bedroom layouts. Of those, five will be designated as affordable.
The team will need city approval to rezone the site for the necessary density and ground-floor use. With the alderwoman’s approval in hand, the team can now proceed with submitting the zoning application. At the moment, no timeline or overall cost has been announced.
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Great adaptive reuse! How do we accelerate projects like this?
By getting rid of the need for Aldermanic approval
Alderwoman approves, but still can’t win.
This is great to see. We HAD a very similar looking David Fireproof Warehouse in my neighborhood that was vacant forever. The new owner decided the only solution was to rip off the original facade and replace it with stainless steel and floor to ceiling glass. It sat vacant again for several more years before the local university bought it. They are replacing the facade for a second time with something more transitional.
But the owner decided it had to mo the owner modernized it by ripping off the entire facade and replacing it with stainless steel panels and glass. It sat
Ooops sorry for the nonsense at the end. We really need an edit button on our comments . LOL
An edit button AND thumbs up/down on the comments.
There’s nothing wrong with modernization per se, it’s how well it’s done and whether it serves the purpose of the tenants. They’re going to have to punch holes all over the facade and other walls in this building, the bigger the better, because of the need for light and air.
Yes, and you can can see in the photo above how you can add windows and retain the facade. In the case of “my” David Warehouse, they replaced 100% of the brick, stone and terra cotta with steel and glass — and still couldn’t find a single tenant for years. Eventually Loyola bought it, and now the façade is being modernized again with brick and slightly less glass.
So glad they are repurposing this building. Kudos to everyone involved.