The four-plus-one or 4+1 is the Chicago building type that everyone loves to hate – everyone, that is, except for the many renters who choose to move into one.
For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, the Chicago four-plus-one takes its name from the four residential floors above a single floor that houses a lobby and parking underneath the building. The buildings exploited a loophole in Chicago’s Zoning Code.
The most common rap against the 4+1s is that they’re ugly, projecting curb appall and curb repel rather than curb appeal. It’s difficult to choose up sides in a debate over aesthetics, but the majority opinion probably comes down on the side of ugly.
The second most common complaint is that 4+1s were cheaply built, and it’s beyond dispute that some were. A property manager I know once confessed, only half jokingly, that he was afraid to replace the hall carpeting in his 4+1s because “I think it’s all that’s holding them together.”
A complaint – more a lament – that’s heard less frequently as time passes is that 4+1s increased density and degraded the visual quality of streetscapes by replacing vintage single-family homes and flats.
Whatever your take on 4+1s, it’s hard to deny their enduring popularity among renters. Most 4+1s are in attractive close-to-the-lake locations where their primary competition is vintage courtyard buildings and converted apartment hotels.
The 4+1s lack the character, high ceilings and vintage features of their competition, but offer other features lacking in those buildings that renters value.
The 4+1s plusses when compared to vintage buildings typically include larger, more functional floor plans, larger windows, much greater closet space, kitchens with more cabinet and counter space, air-conditioning, elevators, garbage chutes. They often have a better location and, most important of all, they have parking.
In the video, shot a year ago today, I tour a 4+1 at 536 W Addison with Planned Property’s Dan McDonough and chat about the property type’s appeal. Planned Property is one of our sponsors.
In the following video, McDonough redefines the 4+1 at 450 W Melrose as a “modern mid-rise elevator building.”
The 4+1 did not “exploit” any “loophole” in code. They were designed fully compliant with building codes. Simply put: no one expected the 4+1 design to happen and cried foul/not fair/et cet at the time because they did not like the design nor want the increased density. Typical NIMBYism. The codes were changed after the fact to exclusively halt the construction of the 4+1.
And the hallway carpet joke quote from a property manager is laughable since many 4+1s have removed the original carpet from the apartments themselves and installed wood flooring.
Nice to see you read Crib Chatter comments, though, Joe.
boiztwn,
I do read some Crib Chatter comments – but the fact that I’ve posted on 4+1s in the past, and shot video at them, is a good marker for CC’s irrelevance to this post. Did it ever occur to you that CC commenters might have read one of YoChicago’s posts on 4+1s or seen our videos? Or that this post occurs almost a year to the day following a previous one on the topic? We’ve done quite a few of these “anniversary posts” of late.
The building code’s irrelevant also. It’s the Zoning Code that was in issue with 4+1s. You’ve unwittingly recited the definition of a loophole in the course of claiming that one wasn’t exploited here: something that wasn’t expected to happen under the law. You can look it up.
Did I not say “half jokingly?”
I think a lot of 4+1’s are superior in space within units than a lot of new construction (and of course, the essential type of four floors over a fireproof garage structure is still pretty common in new construction in Chicago, sometimes even in wood frame).