Developers planning one of the largest real estate projects ever on Chicago’s North Side are on the verge of landing more than $200 million in public funding for infrastructure to support the project on the site formerly known as Lincoln Yards.
The firms behind the $3 billion project now called Foundry Park are seeking tax-increment financing to reimburse them for public aspects of the project such as new roads and parks and reconfigured intersections on the riverside site that runs along Lincoln Park and Bucktown.
New details of potential infrastructure funding are outlined in documents from the Community Development Commission, which is expected to support the plan during its meeting Tuesday.
Pending full City Council approval, the agreement would allow JDL Development and Kayne Anderson Real Estate to pay upfront infrastructure costs to support their more than 30-acre project that is expected to include well over 3,000 apartments, condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes. The project, rebranded as Foundry Park as a nod to the land’s industrial history, is also expected to include a hotel, office and retail space, parks and an extension of the city’s Riverwalk.
If the plan is approved, Chicago-based JDL Development and Boca Raton, Florida-based Kayne Anderson Real Estate would pay about $235 million for infrastructure costs, with the ability to later receive about $201.6 million of that back from TIF funds generated by new structures they will create within the TIF district, according to a Community Development Commission staff report.
The commission is set to vote on granting authority to the city’s planning department to negotiate a redevelopment agreement with the new team of developers.
For years, Chicago-based Sterling Bay had planned a $6 billion project on the site. But it only completed one building, an eight-story life science office and research building, before running into financial trouble in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of Sterling Bay’s biggest obstacles proved to be hundreds of millions of dollars in upfront obligations for Sterling Bay to provide new roads, bridges and a reconfiguration of the chronically clogged intersection of Elston, Ashland and Armitage avenues.
The northern portion of Lincoln Yards was seized by lender Bank OZK, which later sold it to JDL and Kayne Anderson for almost $84 million.
The southern part was sold to Chicago construction and development firm Novak Construction for $34 million. That firm also has bought other nearby land from Sterling Bay, but it has yet to disclose plans for its land.
The alderman whose 32nd Ward includes the parcels, Scott Waguespack, has backed a slimmed-down plan for infrastructure in the area since Foundry Park is millions of square feet smaller than the previously proposed plan by Sterling Bay for the long-vacant, formerly industrial land. Sterling Bay assembled the land by buying several industrial properties, such as the since-demolished A. Finkl & Sons steel plant.
Yet 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins, whose district previously included the entire Lincoln Yards site before boundaries were redrawn a few years ago, has repeatedly voiced opposition to any plan that doesn’t adequately address major traffic congestion in the area, pointing out that one of the main reasons for backing Sterling Bay’s Lincoln Yards plan was the public benefit of improved roads and bridges in the area.
The biggest TIF cost outlined in the Community Development Commission report is nearly $71 million for roadways, with most of the rest going to site prep, multiple parks and an extension of the 606 elevated recreation trail onto the site from the west.
The plan also includes new renderings showing parks within the project.
Pending approvals, work on the initial phase of Foundry Park could begin later this year.
Despite a lack of clarity over how infrastructure costs would be paid at the time, the City Council in February voted to approve zoning for the plan by JDL and Kayne Anderson.
A separate City Council vote would be required to approve the TIF funding agreement.