City drafts 432-unit Pilsen plan

Chicago officials have a 432-unit plan for Pilsen’s largest vacant development site that the city rebounded after private sector attempts at building on the property failed to gain traction.

The city is proposing to build a mix of high rise, mid-rise, townhomes, three-flat and six-flat buildings on a 6-acre lot at 18th and Peoria streets in the Lower West Side neighborhood, according to a presentation officials made to the Chicago Plan Commission, Block Club reported.

The city purchased the parcel for $12 million in February 2022 from Property Markets Group after the developer couldn’t get its 500-unit proposal off the ground, due to criticism from the property’s alderman over what he said was a lack of affordable units.

The city’s proposal would include options to rent and buy. There will be about 430 total units, with the majority being considered affordable housing, per city officials’ recommendation.

Council members conducted an assessment of housing needs in Pilsen and determined that the neighborhood is lacking 1,269 rental units for low-income residents. Thus, the new development will fill a large void in the community, according to city planner James Harris.

Renderings show the project broken down into four phases. Phase One includes three high-rise buildings with some commercial space facing 18th Street. Phases Two and Three feature mid-rises, townhomes and three- and six-flats in the middle portion of the lot, with structures on both sides of Peoria Street. Phase 4 includes two more high rises along 16th Street. 

“This is really promising,” Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez told the outlet. “This was a long time coming. The alternative was 500 luxury units where community would have had very little say-so.”

Developers and the city have been battling over the property for years. The city’s acquisition of the land was a part of a lawsuit settlement with Property Markets Group, which aimed to build the 500-unit project.

The company sued the city in 2018 when a now-disgraced former alderman, Danny Solis, rezoned the property from residential to industrial use, essentially blocking the developer from proceeding with its plan. (Solis has faced criminal bribery allegations and cooperated with federal investigators to gather evidence against other public officials now accused of corruption, including former Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan.)

Sigcho-Lopez blocked Property Market Group’s attempt to relaunch the project in 2019, deeming that it wouldn’t provide enough affordable housing.

— Quinn Donoghue