CRM Prepares for Clyburn Place Shopping Center Redevelopment

The owner of a long-struggling shopping center in Chicago’s Clybourn Corridor is preparing to kick off a redevelopment that could eventually bring a sizable residential building to one of the North Side’s busiest retail strips.

Deerfield-based CRM Properties plans to begin demolition in the coming months at Clybourn Place, a 3-acre shopping center at 1800 North Clybourn Avenue, CoStar reported. The initial phase would clear portions of the site to make way for roughly 43,900 square feet of new retail space, revamped parking and open areas designed to host community events.

The move follows a rough stretch for the center, which has lost several high-profile tenants in recent years, including the original Goose Island Beer brewpub, Patagonia and Bed Bath & Beyond. CRM first outlined its broader vision for the property — dubbed the Willow Street District — in May 2024.

At the time, the firm said the site could ultimately support an apartment building of up to 500 units on the southwest corner of the property. That housing component remains conceptual. CRM principal Jeff Malk said the company’s near-term focus is on demolition and reconfiguration of buildings along Clybourn and Sheffield avenues and Willow Street. Any residential phase would require a zoning change, and its timing and scope have not yet been determined.

For now, CRM is betting on retail. It has tapped Savills brokers Todd Siegel, Phil Golding and Kimberly Wiskup to lease the new space, which would represent a relatively rare infusion of large-format retail availability in Lincoln Park. Individual spaces could reach up to 9,500 square feet.

CRM is pitching the project as a natural extension of the nearby Armitage Avenue shopping corridor, which has thrived in recent years just a few blocks east. The firm is emphasizing walkability paired with on-site parking, aiming to draw both neighborhood foot traffic and shoppers arriving by car.

Most of the new retail would rise north of Willow Street, which currently splits the shopping center. The redevelopment will also preserve pieces of the site’s industrial past, incorporating masonry towers that date back to a former William D. Gibson Company spring plant, later a Turtle Wax factory, before the property’s conversion to retail.

— Eric Weilbacher