OLD TOWN — Some neighbors remain strongly opposed to plans for a 500-apartment tower in Old Town, but Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) said the project could open the door to additional funding to address traffic issues in the area.
The proposed 44-story apartment building would also go a long way in addressing the city’s need for more housing, the alderman said.
“A city needs to grow,” Hopkins said at Tuesday’s community meeting. “If this proposal were suggested two wards away, I think most people in this room would probably say, ‘Yeah, fine. That’s great.’ It’s a balance between the collective interests of the economic health of the city as a whole, and the community interests of people who are longtime residents and stakeholders who have a legitimate concern in something that is literally going to be in their backyards.”
However, Hopkins stopped short of throwing his support behind the proposal, which needs approval from him, the Zoning Board of Appeals and City Council.
Fern Hill, the development firm planning an overhaul of several Old Town properties around North Avenue and LaSalle Drive, has been collecting feedback on the project through community meetings and a public engagement website since 2021.
Hopkins scheduled Tuesday’s meeting in hopes that a traffic report from the city’s Department of Transportation would be done and ready to share with neighbors. It wasn’t, Hopkins said.
“We simply don’t have the proposal from CDOT,” the alderman said. “My first call [Wednesday] will be to the commissioner of CDOT because he knew about this meeting, he had a deadline, and they didn’t meet it. They are a very busy department right now and I’m trying to have a little patience with them.”
Officials with CDOT did not immediately respond to a request for an update on the traffic study Wednesday morning.
Traffic is one of the main pain points for neighbors who oppose the Fern Hill development. Hopkins said Tuesday he shares some of those concerns but is hopeful that if the proposal moves through, he could use it to access more funding to improve congestion in the area.
Hopkins also said Mayor Brandon Johnson expects to see traffic mitigation and a safety improvement plan from CDOT for this development.
“As you all know, the existing traffic conditions in this area are unacceptable, even without this proposal,” Hopkins said. “I want to leverage this project to get answers from the Department of Transportation. If we can combine the two, it opens up additional funding sources to pay for some of the traffic improvements that we’re going to need.”
Changing Plans
Despite changes to the proposal made by Fern Hill to appease neighbors, a contingent of neighbors from nearby apartments, condo associations and businesses remain firmly opposed.
“We fought urban renewal in the ’60s. If not, we would have been another Sandburg Village,” Diane Gonzalez, an Old Town resident and preservationist, said. “We fought for what we have today and we don’t want to give it up. Affordable housing is very important. That parking lot is not very popular with us either, but to go as high as you’re going and as dense as you’re going is not something we support. Please go back to the drawing board and make us something more palatable and we’ll be with you.”
In September, Fern Hill unveiled its initial proposal of a 36-story, 395-foot tower at the northwest corner of North Avenue and LaSalle Drive, which is currently a surface parking lot. The project includes partnerships with the neighboring Moody Church campus at 1635 N. LaSalle Drive and the Walgreens at 1601 N. Wells St. that would transform other parts of the area.
The project also includes the removal of the BP and Shell gas stations at the corner of LaSalle Drive and North Avenue so Moody can expand its administrative offices, the redevelopment of the Walgreens and the transformation of the vacant Treasure Island store, which developers are working to fill with a new grocer.
Over the following seven months, some neighbors in Old Town pushed back on the proposal with concerns about density, traffic congestion, obstruction for nearby buildings and the effect the new building would have on the neighborhood’s character.
Other neighbors and housing advocacy groups have spoken out in support of the project, saying the area needs density, affordable housing and other improvements. Of the tower’s 500 apartments, 100 will be rented out affordably while the other 400 will go at market rate, Nick Anderson, founder and president of Fern Hill, said.
The most recent revised proposal came in March when developers moved the apartment building off Wells by more than 40 feet and reduced the building’s width by 15 percent, from 190 feet to 164 feet, according to the application submitted to the city.
At the same time, the building’s height grew by 85 feet — which some neighbors on Tuesday night called “a monstrosity.”
“We don’t want to see irresponsible development,” Harlene Matyas said. “We don’t like the scope of the project and we don’t like all of the unknowns. Nobody is saying this shouldn’t be developed and nobody is saying you shouldn’t make a profit, but maybe you need to scale down so that you don’t completely infuriate [neighbors] and delay your return on this investment.”
Property Tax Bump
While answering questions from the audience Tuesday night, Anderson said the apartment building would bring in an estimated $2.5 million in property taxes to the city on an annual basis.
“There’s been a massive decline in the new construction pipeline in our city,” Anderson said. “We are generating very little supply for housing in Chicago and that is creating a ton of pressure on rental rates, which is being passed on to people’s incomes.”
Earlier this year, the mayor announced plans to cut through some of the city’s bureaucracy to streamline housing and commercial development.
Supporters of the Fern Hill project at Tuesday’s meeting continued to advocate for more housing in a city that is losing people to other cities.
“People are not moving to Chicago,” Jack Warren, co-lead of Urban Environmentalists Illinois, said. “They’re moving to Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix. They’re not choosing our beloved city. Crime has something to do with it, but when you ask people one of the primary drivers for their move, the answer is consistently the cost of living.”
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