Following our conversations with agents Doug Fox and Karen Stierwalt last week, we chatted with David Hall, who has managed Coldwell Banker’s Lincoln Park office since 1986 and has worked in Lincoln Park for the past 26 years.
Hall says that the neighborhood’s appeal comes from both its location and its history as the birthplace of regentrification in Chicago. “Lincoln Park is really where the urban pioneers settled in the ’60s and ’70s,” he says.
Hall noted several important changes to the area that have contributed to what he calls Lincoln Park’s “blue-chip real estate:”
- Conversion of older or historic two- and three-flats into single-family homes.
- New construction – most prominently of high-end single-family homes on Orchard, Burling and Howe Streets, what Hall calls “Chicago’s new Gold Coast.”
- Conversions of commerical thoroughfares to residential property (condos above retail space).
- Growth in the number of families with children who are staying in the city to raise kids.
- Obvious increases in value: “Lincoln Park, aside from the Gold Coast, has always led the price advance in Chicago real estate,” he says.
Hall likens Lincoln Park to Washington D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, and says that it continues to grow. “If anything, the boundaries of Lincoln Park and what people consider Lincoln Park have expanded over the years,” he says. The neighborhood’s official community area boundaries are North Avenue, the lake, Diversey Parkway and the river, though as with many Chicago neighborhoods, some might dispute this definition.