Chicago Reopens Vacant Loop Site for Development Proposals

Chicago is relaunching efforts to redevelop a high-profile city-owned site in the Loop after plans for a 20-story affordable housing tower fell apart.

The city will issue a new request for proposals later this summer for 331–335 South Plymouth Court, a 15,000-square-foot site across from the Harold Washington Library and adjacent to Pritzker Park, Crain’s reported.

The site’s market value is pegged at about $3.8 million, and purchase price will be a factor in proposal reviews.

A 2021 green building competition led to a $102 million proposal dubbed Assemble Chicago from nonprofit developer Community Builders, featuring 207 income-restricted apartments, a YMCA facility and a Rush University health clinic. Designed by Studio Gang and planned as a net-zero energy building, the project failed to land financing when interest rates rose and lending for ground-up development slowed.

The city’s Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Ciere Boatright said the site is the “poster child” for the next slate of RFPs aimed at activating the city’s vacant land and boosting housing production.

The site is “ripe for high-density, transit-oriented development,” Boatright said, adding that RFP submissions should include year-round park activation and improvements to Pritzker Park as Community Builders had planned.

The project’s collapse was a setback for efforts to revive the southern end of State Street, which a 2023 Urban Land Institute report commissioned by the city recommended be transformed into a “civic and educational district” anchored by students from nearby colleges like Roosevelt and DePaul.

The Plymouth Court site is one of several city-owned parcels the planning department intends to reposition this year.

Other RFPs in the pipeline include a group of 19 lots on the Near West Side and potential mixed-use developments on the city’s South Side, near Midway Airport and the Dan Ryan Expressway, Boatright said.

The city controls roughly 10,000 vacant lots, the majority of which it plans to prioritize for housing. It recently awarded Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives for its $48 million mixed-use project spanning 2 acres of vacant land in Roseland. That project includes 58 affordable housing units set to rise adjacent to a planned CTA Red Line stop.

— Judah Duke