CHICAGO — Another massive office tower is set to be built in red-hot and fast-changing Fulton Market under a proposal given the green light Thursday by the Chicago Plan Commission.
Developer Trammell Crow plans to build a 13-story building at 1375 W. Fulton St. that would feature 315,300 square feet of office space, shops on the ground floor and 116 parking spaces on what is now a vacant lot and surface parking lot along the western edge of the Fulton Market District.
The development firm agreed to “try” to rent the a portion of 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail space at an affordable rate in the booming neighborhood at the request of Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th). The alderman, whose ward includes the West Loop, made a similar request when commissioners endorsed plans for a 12-story office building at 310 N. Sangamon St., which will feature 7,800 square feet of ground floor retail with office space above.
The commission also endorsed a plan to convert an old industrial building at 400-10 Green St. in Fulton Market into a new brewery, distillery and restaurant for Blind Pig Hospitality, as first reported by the Chicago Tribune.
Burnett said he was pleased the building, which he said had been vacant for many years, would be reused, noting that he once reviewed a proposal to turn it into a Russian bathhouse.
The City Council’s committee on zoning could consider the proposals at its meeting Aug. 30.
New TIF district approved
The plan commission endorsed an effort backed by Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10th) to create new tax increment financing district centered around Avenue O and 116th Street.
Department of Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifmansaid the planning commission’s action was “one step in a long process” that does not include a specific redevelopment plan.
The commission also approved a new construction and demolition facility at 3236-58 E. 106th St. in the 10th Ward. The 21-acre facility would include a modified transfer station and seven parking spaces, according to the proposals.
Members of the Southeast Environmental Task Force said they were concerned that the new facility would pollute their neighborhood with dust and choke its streets with truck traffic.
Sadlowski-Garza said she understood the group’s concerns.
“We have been dumped on and polluted for more than 100 years,” Sadlowski-Garza said.
However, the alderman said the firm behind the facility — South Chicago Property Development — has met all of her demands, including requirements for the installation of air quality monitors and the use of barges along the Calumet River to reduce the use of truck traffic.
“They have gone above and beyond,” Sadlowski-Garza said, noting that the new facility will provide much-needed jobs in an area of the city where unemployment is 22 percent.
Plans for another recycling facility at 3203 E. 100th St. were deferred, as was a proposal for a 109-unit luxury apartment project along the 606 trail at the Logan Square/Bucktown border.
