The City of Chicago issued a demolition permit for an 1890-built frame multi-unit residence at 4652 North Magnolia Avenue in Uptown on Monday, April 6. Real estate listings show the property sold in December of last year for $740,000. OG Construction Services is named as the demo contractor, at a reported cost of $17,000.
4652 North Magnolia Avenue in Uptown. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell.
Per a pending permit in the Chicago Data Portal, the replacement, addressed as 4650 North Magnolia, is a three-story, four-unit building designed by Stoneberg + Gross Architects. There will be a private deck and a stair enclosure on the roof, but no porches or balconies are mentioned for the other units. N.L.I.E. Construction is named as the general contractor. As the permit is still pending, no reported cost is known yet. Nor is it clear if these will be for-sale condos or rental apartments.
This frame garage is slated for replacement with four surface parking spaces. Photo by Daniel Schell
From the alley. Photo by Daniel Schell
A frame garage at the alley off West Leland Avenue is also slated in the permit for razing. The new permit calls for four parking spaces on a concrete slab, but it would be unsurprising to see a construction permit for a new garage issued in the future.
No timeline has been announced for demolition or new construction, and as of the morning of April 7, no demolition fencing surrounds either the house or garage.
Site context of 4652 North Magnolia Avenue, via Google Maps
Local transit options, via Google Maps
4650 North Magnolia lies within a three-block walk of both the Lawrence and the Wilson Red Line elevated platforms. Several CTA bus routes, including the #22 west at North Clark Street, Route 78 south at West Montrose Avenue, #36 east at North Broadway, and #81 north at West Lawrence Avenue are within convenient walking distance. The Lawrence bus can be used to connect to the Ravenswood Metra UP-N station about three-quarters of a mile west.
***UPDATE***
As of 1:00pm on April 10, not only is demolition fencing up, but most of the home is gone.
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
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I am guessing this is two duplex down units on the first floor, with 2 simplex units on the upper floors.
It also could be 4 duplex units, allowing 1 of the lower duplexes to have the back yard, another lower duplex to have the roof above the future garage, & the upper two duplexes to each have roof decks.
With a 32.5′ wide lot there are lots of interesting unit layouts that could be pursued, & Stoneberg + Gross have done a number of creative solutions for builder/developer multi-unit infill.
This is tragic, another beautiful old house with character and architectural interest being destroyed to be replaced with a box with windows.
The house is literally falling apart- especially the garage. It barely looks anything like the 1890-built version. It’s a typical cheap vinyl framed house. I would take a modern brick building any day over this.
Yea I’m all for historic preservation, but this house isn’t noteworthy or particularly pleasing to the eye. The windows are about the only nice architectural feature, and that’s not enough to fight against a replacement that will deliver a net gain in housing units.
As of April 9th the house has been leveled to the ground.
Wow, that was fast. I don’t think the demo fencing even had time to dry.