Sterling Bay wants to tear down a warehouse on Chicago’s North Side and replace it with two residential buildings with more than 600 apartments.
The Chicago-based developer will submit plans next week for a 27-story tower and a 16-story high-rise at 1840 North Marcy Street in the Ranch Triangle neighborhood, CoStar news report. They will replace a 78,600-square-foot warehouse.
The proposal comes as Sterling Bay races to find investors to save its nearby $6 billion Lincoln Yards mega-development, a 53-acre urban village that would include as much as 6,000 homes, offices and retail.
Its plan to redevelop the North Marcy Street warehouse estate will be formally presented to the Chicago City Council next week.
Sterling Bay purchased the 2.2-acre property in 2019 for $17 million. The sellers were logistics company CH Robinson Worldwide, which moved into a building developed by Sterling Bay on the north edge of what is now Lincoln Yards.
A 27-story, 315-unit tower and a 16-story, 294-unit high-rise are planned adjacent, according to plans submitted to the city.
Stirling Bay’s plans to redevelop Marcy Street follow two similar proposals to build hundreds of apartments outside Lincoln Court. These include a large timber building at 2100 North Southport Avenue and a standard tower at 2031-2033 North Kingsbury Street.
The proposed housing project comes as developers scramble to launch its 14.5-million-square-foot Lincoln Yards, a formerly industrial strip on Chicago’s riverfront that will join Lincoln Park and Bucktown ( Bucktown) connected.
The Lincoln Yards project, which broke ground in 2021 and has now completed a life sciences building at 1229 West Concord Place, has yet to find any tenants, according to CoStar.
Sterling Bay has since sought hundreds of millions of dollars from the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to speed things up as initial investors and lenders, including JPMorgan Asset Management and Lone Star Fund, want to exit the project.
It is unclear when the 6,000 dwellings approved for development in Lincoln Yards will be completed, as Sterling Bay is arranging a nearby apartment project.
— Dana Bartholomew
