Thad Wong’s Lincoln Park teardown attempt draws neighborhood ire

Co-CEO of Chicago’s largest brokerage @properties bought pre-fire wooden home next to his residence

Thad Wong and 2240 North Burling Street
Thad Wong and 2240 North Burling Street (Twitter)

Thad Wong is facing neighborhood backlash after he announced plans to demolish a 150-year-old home in Lincoln Park.

Wong, the co-CEO of the Chicago area’s largest residential brokerage by sales volume @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, is facing neighborhood backlash after he announced plans to demolish a 150-year-old dwelling in Lincoln Park adjacent to his home, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The co-founder of the Chicago-based brokerage purchased the home at 2240 North Burling Street for $2 million, and filed for a demolition permit with the city. Its issuance, however, was put on hold due to the home’s potentially historic status. The property is one of few wood-frame homes that was built shortly after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which pushed most homebuilders to use less flammable material.

Preservationists have launched a petition to save the home from demolition, and are expected to ask the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to make the home a local landmark or delay the demolition at its February meeting next week.

Teardowns are common in Lincoln Park, an affluent residential neighborhood where some builders and residents are buying up lots and redeveloping them into mega mansions or using newly razed and cleared land as side yards. It’s unclear what Wong plans to do with the property.

Wong and his wife Emily Sachs Wong, who is one of the city’s top residential real estate agents, are neighbors to the property, and purchased their adjacent home in 2003 for $500,000 and renovated it into a single-family home.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Wong did not return a request for comment from the Tribune but had previously commented on the case. In an email to Fox 32 Chicago in December, he said that he was “sensitive to the desire to save old buildings.”

He added: “I live in a 100-year-old home, and I have restored historic properties including the landmark Uptown Broadway Building. However, this particular structure is not a viable candidate for preservation, and I believe the city’s Demolition Delay process, which I fully support, will confirm this.”

Judy Blatherwick is the previous owner of the home and is renting it from the Wongs until she moves into a condo. The $2 million Wong paid Blatherwick is about twice the property’s estimated value on Redfin.

“They gave us a nice price, much more than we would have got putting it on the market,” Blatherwick, who will also avoid paying for repairs on the home’s large porches, told the Tribune. “We felt that would have cost more money than we could have possibly put together.”

— Miranda Davis