A few months ago, during a discussion about the North Side, Garry Benson of Garrison Partners told me that in a down market like ours, real-estate activity would contract from the outside in. Lincoln Park, which he viewed as the “core” North Side neighborhood, would suffer only after things had gotten bad for its neighbors to the north and west. “…You’re more likely to see markets take hits on the outside first, starting with the outer bounds of Wicker Park and Bucktown, eventually bleeding over into Lake View,” Benson said.
What does that mean for a neighborhood like Avondale, which is even further from the core? The Northwest Side neighborhood, which is bounded by Addison Street to the north, Diversey Avenue to the south, the Chicago River to the east and the Metra tracks and Pulaski Road to the west, has seen a decent amount of activity in recent years, from the emergence of condos along Elston and Belmont avenues to the construction of multi-phased townhouse developments. It has a few big-box retail stores, a few hip restaurants, and easy access to the expressway system and the CTA and Metra lines. How do you see it faring over the next few years?
I plan to get up there on a nicer day to see how things are going, and to take a tour of some of the more prominent projects in the area, like Cornelia Court. For now, I’ve put together a list of new condos and townhouses in Avondale. Feel free to rate and review any developments you’ve visited or watched from afar, or offer up some opinions about the neighborhood in a comment below.
• View our list of new Avondale condos and townhouses