A small parcel at the northwest corner of Western Ave. and Addison St. is for sale in the North Center community area and 47th Ward. The address is 3600 N Western Ave. and the PIN is 13–24–209–039–0000.
It currently is “improved” with a 1-story building occupied by Hero’s Sub Shop (a fast food restaurant), 10 car parking spaces, and a driveway on Addison. The building is about 700 square feet.
There’s a billboard and an access lane to that billboard that can act as two additional car parking spaces. The Western frontage is 47 feet, and the Addison frontage is 107 feet.
There’s a Wendy’s next door, a large high school across the street, and strip malls on the other two corners. Behind the strip malls on both sides of Western Ave. are mid-density residential area.
What would you build here?
C2–2 zoning allows a wide variety of land uses. By right, you can build residential units above the ground floor, a library, a school, a day care, assisted living, a hospital, a veterinarian, an art gallery, tattoo shop, a general office space, an urban farm, hardware store, restaurant, bar, a small venue, bank, banquet hall, or a convenience store.
You can also build a liquor store, undertaking, bed & breakfast, doctor’s office, hair or nail salon, massage parlor, laundromat, dry cleaning shop or plant, self-storage, an arcade, car parts store, car & motorcycle rental, car repair shop, a warehouse, and several more.
Assuming you were to demolish Hero’s and building something new, here’s what’s required.
It requires a larger building than on-site, at least 1,300 SF. No setbacks are required because it’s a C district and the Residential district behind it is across an alley. The maximum height is 50 feet.
I don’t imagine that anyone would want to live on this corner property. It’s too small for a Walgreens or CVS, but it’s probably the right side for a 7–11 with minimal car parking spaces. Delivery trailers could use the alley for loading.
I see the potential for a veterinary office. It could also be a great space for a larger restaurant with zero parking spaces that can rely on a large walk-up clientele, or a shared-parking relationship with Wendy’s.
What’s the parking requirement?
Hero’s is in Parking Group M, which also includes general retail businesses, which requires zero parking spaces for the first 4,000 SF and 2.5 spaces per 1,000 SF after. This means you can’t build to the full 5,200 SF of the lot. 2.5 spaces, really 3 spaces, requires 480 square feet, and another significant amount for the access lane from the driveway. Let’s be conservative, though, and say that’s 520 SF to make an even 1,000.
With the parking, you can now develop on 4,200 square feet, which is barely more than the 4,000 SF threshold, at and under which no parking is required.
What would you build on the remaining 1,000 or 1,200 SF?
Say an office was going here instead of a restaurant or retail. The parking requirement is also nothing for the first 4,000 SF but 2.0 spaces per 1,000 SF after.
If you could get permission to build a second driveway you could build a drive-through. However, this is the worst use of a corner lot because of how it screws up traffic at an already busy intersection.