Foundry Park project, downsized successor to failed Lincoln Yards venture, gets Chicago City Council's OK
One of the largest and most enticing development sites in Chicago is finally getting the “hard re-set” that city Planning and Development Commissioner Ciere Boatright has said post-pandemic challenges demand.
The City Council gave final zoning approval Wednesday to Foundry Park, JDL Development’s new, scaled-back vision for North Side industrial land along the Chicago River that once was supposed to be home to the Lincoln Yards megaproject.
Boatright told the Chicago Sun-Times last summer that Lincoln Yards needed a “hard reset” because its plan envisioned creating the equivalent of two Willis Towers’ worth of office space along the Chicago River between Bucktown and Lincoln Park — an unrealistic goal following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Developer Jim Letchinger's plan for roughly 34 vacant acres delivers on that scaled-back promise. It calls for up to 3,737 residences, 20% of them designated as affordable to comply with the city’s setaside rules. The new design includes low- to mid-rise buildings, some for offices, grouped near open space and riverfront access. Buildings would get ground-floor retail, and one is slated as a boutique hotel.
The toned-down approach and reduced density has drawn praise from local residents, Plan Commission members and local Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), who inherited the stalled project from Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) when ward boundaries were redrawn.
That’s because it is less congested, less costly and ambitious and, therefore, more likely to be delivered than the $6 billion Lincoln Yards plan that collapsed last year.
Letchinger has assured the Chicago Plan Commission and the City Council’s Zoning Committee that he and partner Kayne Anderson Real Estate have the financing lined up begin the first construction phase, costing about $800 million, late in 2026.
His goal is to build a neighborhood that invites people to visit and shop, connecting Foundry Park to adjacent residential areas. The tallest building in his plan is around 40 stories. The project also includes some single-family homes.
“Not only are we not gating the community, we are inviting the community,” Letchinger told the Chicago Plan Commission last month. “We’re optimistic that we can have this entire site built in seven years.”
The Foundry Park name refers to the property’s former use by Finkl Steel.
JDL’s design with Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture sketches out a site plan with about a quarter of the acreage reserved for open space, including new riverfront paths. Parking for about 300 cars would be below grade.
The only parking access would be from Kingsbury Street, amounting to the only curb cuts in the development. Letchinger said the design would help traffic flow, a concern that lingers despite qualified support for the project from local groups.
Shortly before leaving office, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel convinced the City Council to approve a combined $2.4 billion in city subsidies for a pair of megaprojects he believed had potential to dramatically increase Chicago’s shrinking tax base. Lincoln Yards was one of them. The other was “The 78,” the long-dormant parcel at Roosevelt and Clark.
The 78 remains vacant, having been eyed by the White Sox most recently for a proposed taxpayer-funded baseball stadium — an idea that so far has yet to gain any traction.
At Lincoln Yards, it took its developer, Sterling Bay, until 2021 to break ground on a $200 million life sciences building that remains vacant.
Still to be decided is how much support from tax increment financing the project gets. The Lincoln Yards project was in line for up to $1.3 billion in TIF help for infrastructure work.
Foundry Park would be eligible for less money, but many still hope to extend Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail, called The 606, into the development. It would have to be built across a highway, Metra tracks and the river — all expensive propositions. TIF discussions are in “early-ish” stages, according to Boatright.
Hopkins cast the lone no vote on the project, unwilling to “walk away” from the $800 million worth of roads, bridges, utilities, and mass transit improvements that he said were “mandated” as part of the Lincoln Yards plan.
“It’ll be thousands of new housing units. Thousands of new families. Tens of thousands of square feet of new mixed-use development and no infrastructure to support it as of today. We cannot allow that to happen," Hopkins said. “It’s our obligation as a city to… build a new bridge over the river, to fix the Metra station, to rebuild that Elston and Armitage intersection, which is a mess. All of those things that were promised to the neighborhood as a contingent for their support of Lincoln Yards.”
Waguespack acknowledged that significant transportation challenges remain for the “vastly different” plan for Foundry Park.
But he said those problems will require a “more holistic approach,” adding that he’s confident residents will “see results as the project moves forward.”