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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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!).