The Chicago Department of Planning & Development (DPD) proposed some organizational changes to the Kinzie Planned Manufacturing District (PMD #4) on Tuesday night. The PMD borders the Fulton Market and West Loop areas, which have seen an explosion in new construction office, residential, and food and beverage development in the last eight years.
The meeting is part of the department’s Kinzie Framework Plan process, which is part of Mayor Emanuel’s efforts to modernize the city’s industrial corridors. The PMD used to cover the Fulton Market area (north of Lake Street) but was truncated last year to Ogden Avenue to allow for more uses and denser uses in the Fulton Market/West Loop areas.
What’s in the proposal
DPD has proposed that the PMD’s boundaries and allowed uses stay the same, with some minor reorganizing.
To keep this short and sweet, I will summarize the changes as they affect the developers and investors who are interested in redeveloping land west of the Fulton Market and West Loop areas in a way that takes advantage of their proximity to the action.
In DPD’s proposal, Subareas A and B have switched positions and changed internal boundaries. Subarea B is now between Ashland Avenue on the west and Ogden Avenue on the east; this is the area closest to the action.
In Subarea B, DPD has proposed the following changes:
- The maximum area for offices would be eliminated, except for the current FAR limitation of 3.0. (There’s a current exception in that there is no maximum area when reusing a building, except for FAR 3.0.)
- The maximum area for retail food & beverage sales would increase from today’s 3,000 s.f. to 8,000 s.f.
- The maximum area for eating & drinking establishments would increase from 4,000 s.f. to 8,000 s.f. Owners would be able to apply for a variation from the Zoning Board of Appeals to build up to 12,000 s.f.
- There could be freestanding retail locations up to 3,000 s.f. per store; currently, a store can only be built as an attachment to the factory that makes the goods sold in the store (ZBA would be able to increase this)
Around the CTA’s incoming Green Line station at Damen Avenue (green circle in the above map), which is at the PMD’s southern border along Lake Street, DPD has proposed no changes. Remember, north of Lake Street is the PMD and south of Lake Street is not in the PMD.
Little adjacent development
In the proposal, the area north of the future CTA station would continue to not allow residential, and the area south of the future CTA station would be subject to the standards of the existing zoning map. It should be noted that the properties around the future station south of Lake Street are residential, and another huge swath is “locked up” in a Planned Development for the United Center’s official parking lots.
I argued in a Streetsblog Chicago article two months ago that the area around the future station should be rezoned to allow for transit-supporting land uses. The City of Chicago is spending over $50 million in public funds on a new CTA station that will have 21 hours of transit service per day, but no one is allowed to build new housing in the area north of it (until Grand Avenue, where the PMD ends).
There’s very little development activity in PMD #4: In the last 12 months there have been two new construction building permits. The most recent was for a two-story light industrial and manufacturing facility developed by Peppercorn Capital for a vacant parcel one block west of the future station, and the second, issued a year ago, was for a four-story office building.
Fifteen months ago, a new construction permit was issued to the Wolcott School to build a new gym — hardly an industrial or manufacturing use. Before that, the next new construction permit in the PMD was issued three years ago for Great Central Brewing’s brewery at Wood Street and Walnut Street.
It will be difficult to maximize the public investment embodied in the future station if it serves a low-density residential area south of it and low-density commercial areas north of it. There would be higher ridership at the station if residential mixed-use was allowed around it in the PMD area.
More info
View the slideshow presented at the meeting, and view other materials in the Kinzie Framework Plan process. If you would like to comment on DPD’s proposal, send them to dpd@cityofchicago.org.
Thank you to Kyle Terry for reviewing this post.