Honore Peerless Plan 28-Story Rental Building in Lincoln Park

A local development team is aiming to push Lincoln Park’s skyline higher, proposing a 28-story apartment building in a pocket of the neighborhood that’s steadily attracting denser projects.

A venture of Chicago-based Honore Properties and Elmhurst-based Peerless Development is seeking city approval for a 340-unit rental building at 1415 North Dayton Street. The site is currently occupied by a four-story loft office building the developers initially hoped to convert, before switching to a full teardown and a plan to build a high-rise, Crain’s reported.

The change came after the team determined the building’s layout made an adaptive reuse impractical. Instead, they stitched together air rights from three nearby properties to unlock far greater density — a process Honore founder Michael Shenouda told the outlet was “quite the puzzle.”

If the Chicago City Council signs off in March, the roughly $145 million project would move quickly. The developers plan to demolish the existing structure within months, start construction this fall and complete the first apartments in spring 2028.

The site sits near the North Branch of the Chicago River, an area that has seen a wave of residential proposals since the city loosened zoning restrictions in what was once a largely industrial stretch. New housing is increasingly complementing the retail-heavy Clybourn Corridor, though large developable parcels in Lincoln Park remain scarce, according to the outlet.

That scarcity is part of the wager, as downtown rents jumped last year amid a thin development pipeline, and popular neighborhoods like Lincoln Park have seen relatively little new supply compared to the West Loop.

“Supply in Chicago is already constrained,” Shenouda said. “Lincoln Park in particular, there hasn’t been a lot of new development.”

The glass tower would rise from a six-story masonry podium housing amenities, including a fitness center, coworking space and a courtyard. About 80 percent of the apartments would be market-rate, with the remaining 20 percent — 68 units — set aside as affordable under the city’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance, according to the site plans. Market-rate rents are projected at $4 per square foot to $5 per square foot.

The developers paid nearly $3.5 million for the Dayton Street property in 2024, records show.

Peerless CEO Michael Cordaro told the outlet the team’s low land basis and unique setup offer confidence. The project would mark Honore and Peerless’ first ground-up high-rise after collaborating on several mid-rise conversions across the city.

— Eric Weilbacher