Developer Plans Massive Axis West Development With 18-Story And 14-Story Office Towers In Fulton Market

FULTON MARKET — As the year ends, developers’ interest in Fulton Market is not slowing down. 

Minneapolis-based developer Ryan Companies and partner IBT Group announced plans this week to build Axis West, a two-office tower project on a 2.1-acre site at 1200 W. Fulton Market. Under plans, the office buildings would scale 18 and 14 stories.

The project would add 556,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 335 parking spaces and 100 bicycle parking spaces to the booming area, according to a zoning application filed with the city. 

A 13,000-square-foot plaza, fitness center and outdoor terraces equipped with wifi are also planned, the company announced in a press release.

The project would replace a mix of one-story commercial and industrial buildings with a 300-foot-tall, 18-story building and a 240-foot-tall, 14-story building, according to the zoning application.

Designed by CallisonRTKL, the project sits one block south from where Sterling Bay is looking to build a 14-story, nearly 500,000-square-foot office building at the corner of Racine and Carroll avenues. 

The project will likely evolve following feedback from the city’s Department of Planning and Development and the neighborhood, said Gary Pachucki, founder and president of IBT Group.

In 2017, IBT previously pitched plans for a massive 1.2 million-square-foot project with office space, retail space and a hotel building at the site, but scrapped plans after parting ways with hedge-fund investor Andrew Bluhm, Crain’s reported.

The development team is seeking a zoning change from M2-3 Light Industry to DX-5 Mixed-Use, then to a business Planned Development in order to make way for the two towers.

If approved, the project could break ground in fall 2020.

Do stories like this matter to you? Subscribe to Block Club Chicago. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.

Already subscribe? Click here to support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.

Our goal is to reach 10,000 subscribers by the beginning of 2020. With just a few weeks left in the year, we’re pretty close to that goal. Can you help us get across the finish line? Subscribe here or buy a subscription as a gift here.