When you hear that the old US Steel site in South Chicago won’t be fully redeveloped until 2055, it’s easy to assume that everything will move at a very deliberate pace. I wasn’t expecting McCaffery Interests to set up shop on site by year’s end, that’s for sure.
According to a news release from McCaffery, a marketing center for the Market Common should open this fall to promote the planned construction of 250 rental apartments, 136 rental townhomes, three lakefront towers comprising a total of 600 units, and 844,000 square feet of commercial space on a 76-acre parcel. Construction is expected to begin in early 2013, following the expansion of South Shore Drive to 87th Street, with the first stores opening in 2014.
Market Common is the first phase of what McCaffery calls Chicago Lakeside, a collection of 13,575 homes, 17.5 million square feet of retail and commercial space, parks, and a 1,500-boat harbor planned for 369 acres through at least six phases and over a 25- to 45-year period. The development is expected to cost at least $4 billion in public and private funds. The city has already promised $96 million in TIF funds for Market Common alone.
Attached to the press release were these three new renderings, presumably from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Sasaki Associates, and/or Antunovich Associates, all of whom are working with McCaffery. At top and bottom left are images of the entire Lakeside development; at bottom right is a detail of the Market Common phase.
WOW we’re a long way from 2055! I can only imagine if this new development could be the richest part of the south side when it’s finally redeveloped. Although by 2055, the south side may be a different place than it is now.
I wish the developers the best,
but like all other developments on Chicago’s accursed south side, I expect to ultimately see nothing more built there than a massive, soul-crushingly ugly suburban strip center with obsenely large seas of parking, surrounded by fields of undeveloped land.
Isn’t that exciting?
Why don’t we all face it–little worth caring about gets built on the south side unless it was built before 1940.
tup,
You really do need to get out more.
The renderings are actually models by Columbian Models, made for Antunovich, and dropped into aerial photographs.
Thanks, William!