The three-building campus formerly home to House of the Good Shepherd is in the process of being torn down, as the Chicago Cubs look to expand their “Camry” parking lot on West Grace Street just north of Wrigley Field. House of the Good Shepherd called the site home from 1907 into the 2020s, tearing down the original buildings and erecting new ones in the mid-1970s. The Cubs purchased the property in 2024.
Footprint of House of the Good Shepherd in red, the current Camry lot in blue, via Google Maps
Three demolition permits, each of them with application start dates of November 21, 2025, were issued on April 20 addressed as 1114 West Grace Street. They were designated as the north, south, and west buildings. All were two-story structures, but the north and south buildings were considerably larger than the west. As of Monday the 11th, the west building was gone, the south building was rubble save for one wall facing Grace Street, and the north building was in varying stages of demolition. Alpine Demolition Services is on the job, with costs reported for the three permits as $175,000 (north), $125,000 (south), and $75,000 (west) for the three buildings.
The Cubs are seeking permission from the city to expand the Camry parking lot by 368 spaces; it holds 579 spaces now.
The befores:
The south building, just inside the entrance, prior to the start of demolition. Photo by Daniel Schell
Rear of the south building. Photo by Daniel Schell
The west building. Photo by Daniel Schell
The north building. Photo by Daniel Schell
North building. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Rear of the north building. Photo by Daniel Schell
The afters:
the north building, sitting at the rear of the demo site. Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
Photo by Daniel Schell
What little remains of the south building. Photo by Daniel Schell
From the main entrance off Grace Street. Photo by Daniel Schell
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Absolutely insane project in 2026. Perpetual shame on anyone that supports it.
1000% agree
Cubs ownership insane in all aspects apparently.
Cubs are building a parking lot? Not even a parking garage? Wow. Go White Sox!
Yeah, and it’s only for Toyota Camrys – ridiculous!
You can park any car in the Camry lot. That is just the name of the parking lot. The Cubs own several parking lots around the stadium and each are named after Toyota models. Must be a sponsorship.
The Sox stadium is a classic modern stadium i.e. massive parking lots fully surrounding the stadium.
I get that the Cubs bought the property, it’s next to an already-functioning parking lot. I like making money too.
But damn: 368 new spots is thousands and thousands of MORE CARS darting around Lakeview, laying on the horn, angry about gridlock, and a lot of drunk drivers. That’s not Cubs ownership’s problem, that is fully ours.
Well, apparently land in Chicago is still that cheap.. buying a lot in Wrigley for a parking lot. Once it’ll become more expensive they’ll build a parking garage with a tower above one day.
Exactly, it’s not deeper than that. For now, I only see upsides:
– A less crowded neighborhood during game nights.
– The demolished building was extremely ugly anyway.
– The lot is by a cemetery, so we’re not talking about a super prime location.
Now, it would be nice if they planted tall trees to create a neat tree line around the lot, or perhaps a tall, nicely trimmed hedge. That would help aesthetically.
The neighborhood will be crowded with more cars during game nights because of this. The informal neighborhood lots will not stop operating. This just allows hundreds of additional drivers to justify driving & plan ahead for it, rather than carpooling or taking any of the multitude of transit options to games.
I don’t understand how you think this leads to LESS crowds?
This is a dumb take and you seem to only care about aesthetics rather than reality.
AFAIK it’s not finalized so not too late to yell/politely tell Ald Lawson to oppose the parking lot.
Indeed, I wrote him an email a few weeks back. Everyone should do this and Active Trans, Abundant Housing, Better Streets Chicago, should start a campaign to blast Ald. Lawson with emails and phone calls showing how much we DO NOT want more surface parking, we want less.
That’s where pregnant girls went to stay and then have their babies adopted through Catholic Charities
That was definitely a different era. Having a child out of wedlock was unacceptable back then.
Abhorrent waste of land use in one of the most in demand neighborhoods in the city. This will only make traffic worse and stands to benefit suburbanites when we should be focused on residents.
If it is something in demand, and you have such great ideas for it, it sounds like you are just jealous you didn’t buy it?
We’re like, really doomed guys
They oughta build a several story parking garage and drop a couple apartment towers on top. But of course the neighborhood Karens would start shrieking. So maybe they oughta build a parking deck. The neighborhood Karens would shriek even louder. So we get this. Sigh.
You do nothing but complain on this website, but please tell us more about other people shrieking.
Insanely bad use of land in 2026. This will support maybe 50 more cars with about 6 times the land that is necessary for the Addison stop that probably carries 300X the number of people that the parking lot does. Just insanely wild.
Today I learned that 50 cars require 368 parking spaces.
Yeesh. What a crappy idea for that part of the city…folks who are constituents of that alder (I am not) should be making a stink.
what a shame to demolish these structures. nothing is sacred to these developers.
I’ve made peace with them knocking down my favorite bar (and possibly the best bar in the city), Holiday Club, in the name of densifying and fighting the housing crisis.
And then… they do this 1 block away 😭 words cannot describe how much i despise the Ricketts. Go White Sox this weekend!
The Rickets owned the land where Holiday Club was? That’s not a big piece of land. What is going in there?
No they don’t i’m just making the point that there is enough demand in this exact area to knock down a beloved bar and yet the ricketts are expanding a parking lot there
From an architectural standpoint, this “complex” is one of the ugliest buildings in Chicago. My god, just look at it – certainly a product of a “D-grade” architecture student. You won’t see any tears in my eyes because it was demolished—no matter the reason.
Hilarious, in 2026 the Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox are trying to become more like the Cubs stadium prioritizing people over parking cars, while the Cubs are trying to destroy what makes their stadium successful (hint, it’s not car parking!).
Pathetic. Shame on the Cubs ownership for this. What an insult to the community.
I know, right? How dare the team that has been in this neighborhood for 120+ years bring people in?
This doesn’t bring more people in lol just makes more people DRIVE in. They sell out either way. It’s not like they have empty seats because there’s not enough parking.
The walkability of wrigleyville is the only redeemable quality of the entire cubs organization
The Ricketts Are so Greedy smart but greedy guess greed is good
I will agree that parking is probably not the highest and best use for what looks like almost a full city block of land. You could likely fit 20–30 single-family homes per side, or if the neighborhood allowed denser zoning like three-flats, maybe 100–150 housing units total — and realistically many of those residents would still own cars too.
I guess the real question is: what exactly do people want on this land, and what would the neighborhood actually permit? In Chicago, everyone says “build housing” until it’s proposed next door. At least this use ties directly into Wrigley traffic and existing demand.
And just because the Ricketts use it as parking today doesn’t mean it couldn’t be redeveloped into something larger in the future if economics, zoning, and neighborhood politics change.
I’m not pro-parking lot but I don’t see how adding 364 spaces for a stadium that seats 41,000 people is going to increase the number of people that drive to Wrigley. The lot seems like a better option for all those people that already park illegally “and hope for the best” or rent offsteet parking from a random local resident (which often requires the resident to park on a street).
There’a literally no comparison between the Cubs lots and the acres and acres of lots that surround Rate Field and the United Center.
This is a strategic land aquisition for the Cubs. Dismiss as you will, but it actually gives them a larger piece of property than the entire of the Field. Redevelop this with a huge parking structure below and housing above – both things that I think everyone in the immediate and overall area would think beneficial. Though we know that proposal will be met with massive outcry for it being “too large and out of touch with the neighborhood” We’d rather it be a parking lot. I’d much rather the Cubs having their own controlled parking than people from out of the area parking on the streets on game days. Don’t give me the argument of they can take the train, we know people just don’t do that. I can walk to and hear Wrigley from my house, so I know what I’m talking about, before you suburban people start to yell at me.
Because I was curious, I asked my (subscription) AI tool to estimate the increase in cars driving to Wrigley based on the addition of 368 parking spaces for game day use only. As a fun fact only, it estimated a maximum of 450 cars would compete for those new spaces, but that some unmeasurable portion of that 450 will be people that already drive to Wrigley and park elsewhere today.