CityPads targets midmarket renters with Near North Side housing project

A Chicago developer wants to expand rental options for people who aren’t rich and still want a nice Near North Side apartment.

CityPads Chicago has proposed building a four-story, 136-unit development at 1523 North Fremont Street to fill a gap its leader Andy Ahitow sees for moderate income renters among the city’s housing stock, Crain’s reported. The project will market apartments for people who make 60-140 percent of the area median income.

“Not enough developers are building apartments that average people can afford,” Ahitow told the outlet. In addition to Ahitow, CityPads principals include Sandy Albert and Daniel Zivin.

CityPads is also developing a similarly priced 120-unit apartment building in Evanston and a 105-unit project in Edgewater. The developer’s apartment units are often smaller — about 500 square feet — to allow CityPads to collect more rent-per-square-foot overall, even when the rates are lower.

The North Side project calls for studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. CityPads will market 20 percent of the apartments — 27 total units — as affordable for tenants making 60 percent of the area median income, or $43,800 annually for a single-person household. The others will be for people making up to 140 percent, or $102,000 for a single-person household.

CityPads will need to secure a rezoning for the site from the city council. Ahitow said the company plans to finish construction by the end of 2024.

In 2018, CityPads was granted approval to build a 59-unit project in University Village on a parcel it bought from an entity linked to Chicago Cubs chairman Todd Ricketts for $3.7 million before starting construction. CityPads bills that property, at 1407 West 15th Street, as one of the largest ground-up co-living development projects in the nation, according to its website.

And in July this year, CityPads started marketing a 77-unit single-room occupancy apartment property that it bought for $3 million 2017 and put through a full gut renovation and improvements. It hired local mid-market multifamily brokerage Essex Realty Group to court offers for the asset and was reportedly seeking $14 million, though a deal has yet to be made, public property records show.

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