By Fauzia Jafar and Ana Gore
Three of the top ten construction projects in Chicago issued in May 2018 are located in Rogers Park and West Ridge.
There are two projects in Rogers Park, both are affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. One of them is a $17 million apartment complex with retail space on the first floor on Sheridan Road. The other is a $15.5 million practice facility for Loyola’s Lakeshore campus located on Loyola Ave.
The third construction project, located on Western Ave. in West Ridge, is a four-story $24 million building with the Northtown Branch Library on the first floor and senior housing units on the higher floors.
John O’Brien, senior editor at The Real Deal, said “For two months in a row, a vast majority of the biggest projects are not happening in downtown.”
“I think an easy conclusion to draw would be that there’s a healthy market and there’s a lot of appetite for investments and projects,” he said.
According to O’Brien, the construction projects based around Loyola are so prevalent because Rogers Park and Edgewater have the advantage of being by the lake and having various CTA routes.
These neighborhoods also have many students living in them.
“The hottest thing right now are apartments. Young people tend to rent rather than buy. They tend to move around more,” O’Brien said. “A lot of people are looking to rent so a lot of investors are looking to make apartments.”
There are a lot of developments happening in the north side of Chicago, so prices are rising for apartments in neighborhoods like North Center and Uptown.
“Sooner or later people are going to say they can’t afford to live in Uptown but still want to live close enough to downtown,” he said. “Here’s an area that’s the next best thing.”
The other seven construction projects in Chicago are located in the neighborhoods of West Loop, Archer Heights, South Loop and Gage Park.
The Apartment building on Devon and Broadway (pictured in the article) remains one of the ugliest added to Chicago in recent years. The Devon Broadway intersection has become the laughing stock of Chicago architecture — where architecture goes to die and the worst designs go to thrive.