Fulton Market Tower Bid Sparks Zoning Fight in Chicago

A proposed apartment tower in Fulton Market is testing how far Chicago is willing to stretch downtown zoning, as well as whether the city will risk undermining a development program that’s steered tens of millions of dollars to South and West Side neighborhoods.

Up for a vote at the Feb. 19 Chicago Plan Commission meeting is a 29-story, 347-unit apartment building at 215 North Racine Avenue, according to an agenda posted online. The project is being pitched by a venture led by Chicago-based Domus Real Estate Group, which filed its zoning application last spring, Crain’s reported.

On its face, the building wouldn’t look out of place in Fulton Market, where high-rise apartments have followed waves of office, hotel and restaurant development. The flashpoint is that Domus is seeking DX-16 base zoning — the densest classification in the city and the same designation that underpins Chicago’s tallest Loop skyscrapers.

That request alarmed planning experts and neighborhood groups who said it would upend the zoning framework that has guided Fulton Market’s transformation over the past decade, according to the publication. More critically, DX-16 comes with no cap on bonus density, opening the door to much larger towers and allowing developers to bypass payments into the city’s Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus fund.

“That would open the floodgates for everyone else,” Eleanor Esser Gorski, a former planning department official who helped write Fulton Market’s design guidelines and now leads the Chicago Architecture Center, told the outlet. “I would be shocked if this would be allowed.”

Under zoning rules adopted in 2017, the Fulton Market Innovation District generally allowed base zoning up to DX-5, with developers able to buy additional density through the Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus fund. The Chicago City Council has since approved projects with base zoning as high as DX-7, paired with bonuses that push total density to a multiplier of 11.5.

Since 2017, Fulton Market developers have paid roughly $83 million into the bonus fund, according to city data, with more committed by projects that haven’t yet broken ground. Most of that cash is routed to grants for small businesses in South and West Side neighborhoods, with a portion earmarked for infrastructure and landmark projects.

DX-16 would short-circuit that pipeline, the outlet reported. Critics warn developers could rework existing approvals or pursue new projects with far higher as-of-right density, vaporizing future bonus payments and straining infrastructure in a district already under pressure.

A Plan Commission recommendation would send the project to the City Council Zoning Committee and then the full council, which typically follows the commission’s lead. But the proposal is already pitting Alderman Walter “Red” Burnett, whose ward includes the site, against neighborhood groups and some planners.

Burnett told the outlet that the objection isn’t the building itself, but the precedent. He argued Fulton Market needs more family-sized units and flexibility to evolve, calling opposition rooted in “technicalities of zoning.”

In a statement, Domus’ managing director, Phillip Ciaccio, said the firm worked with stakeholders and touted a sizable Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus payment, affordable units and a publicly accessible park planned for a separate site nearby. The statement did not directly address the DX-16 request.

The West Central Association Chamber of Commerce wasn’t convinced. In a January letter to Burnett, the group said the zoning would be inconsistent with the neighborhood’s established scale and vision.

— Eric Weilbacher