JC Griffin’s pitch for a gleaming high-rise campus on Chicago’s Near South Side is moving into the city approval stage, but the ink still isn’t dry on the necessary land sale or construction financing for the massive project that also touts an AI workforce training facility and green energy.
The former Transwestern broker’s Griffin Venture Group is promoting its 1.4 million-square-foot Metropolis Pointe proposal as a low-carbon, tech-driven “next-gen lifestyle campus,” yet much about the project remains aspirational.
Still, the developer has taken a significant step toward city approval by gaining 4th Ward Alderman Lamont Robinson’s support for the project and has hired a legal team with considerable clout.
Griffin brought on lawyers with Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres including David Reifman, the city’s former Planning Commissioner under Rahm Emanuel, as well as Jesse Dodson. They’re set to meet with city planning officials early next month for some initial feedback on the plan.
Griffin has a memo of understanding to buy the 6.6-acre site at 26th Street and Martin Luther King Drive from King Sykes LLC, a local investor group that once tried to sell the same land to data-center firm Equinix.
That $30 million deal collapsed and led to a lawsuit over city interference in which a former alderman, Sophia King, allegedly tried to steer the sale to Scott Goodman’s Farpoint Development, leader of the Bronzeville Lakefront megaproject next door. A judge later dismissed King Sykes’ claims, however.
Now, Griffin’s firm is pursuing city approvals for a residential tower and mixed-use complex that would sit adjacent to Bronzeville Lakefront, which is progressing, but slowly, on transforming that site formerly anchored by the Michael Reese Hospital.
The King Sykes site’s current owners paid $12.4 million for it in 2007 and have held it through years of stalled plans and political friction, The Real Deal previously reported.
Griffin’s proposed project — his firm’s first ground-up development in Chicago — would mark a dramatic pivot: a 50-story high-rise with more than 600 apartments and condos, plus retail and a “sky veranda” at the top.
The plan also layers in an Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Institute, billed as a hub for AI research and workforce training, alongside a 185,000-square-foot digital infrastructure facility and a 26,000-square-foot cogeneration electricity plant in partnership with energy operator CenTrio.
Yet there’s still a long path ahead. Financing details haven’t been disclosed, and Griffin has declined to name institutional partners for the AI institute. Even with Bronzeville Lakefront next door, that megaproject has itself experienced a delayed rollout as developers navigate interest rates, infrastructure costs and city politics.
If Griffin can close on the site and push entitlements through, Metropolis Pointe could become one of the largest private investments in Bronzeville’s recent history.
But without clear financial backing or a finalized land transfer, the initiative risks joining Chicago’s long list of overhyped projects that never broke ground. For now, the “city’s first next-gen lifestyle campus” is still an idea on paper — albeit one with a slick pitch deck and a developer betting his reputation on it.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note JC Griffin has a memo of understanding to purchase the site and is not under contract.
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Residential skyscraper eyed for Bronzeville site near lakefront megadevelopment
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JC Griffin wins deal for Bronzeville site with big residential tower plan