If you check in on our recently-updated list and map of new downtown apartment projects you’ll see that more than 8,000 apartment units are either underway or in various stages of the process.
Will all those units be built? Not likely, says Steve Fifield, who recently broke ground on the 34-story, 496-unit K2, the fifth and final high-rise rental tower at his 2,145-unit K Station development.
One barrier, according to Fifield is the city’s affordable housing requirement. If Alta at K Station had been subject to the requirement, it would have cost an additional $8.5 million and “might not have been feasible to build” when it began, he said.
Fifield reserved his greatest skepticism for South Loop projects. The South Loop, in his view, “does not get high enough rents to justify new construction… The builders who’ve built down there are disappointed and none of them want to build another building down there.”
The video is set to start at the point at which Fifield begins stating his views on the feasibility of new rental apartment projects.