Special offer

Chicago Mystery Property

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Dream Town Realty

For decades, a large parcel of land just past the Roosevelt Collection loft building in Chicago South Loop has remained surprisingly vacant despite its promising location and size. The 5-acre plot of land, nestled between the South Loop neighborhood and the Chicago River, has been the site of numerous past development dreams, the most recent of which is generating some buzz.

At a live auction on June 3rd, a company called the U.S. Auction Opportunity Fund purchased the land for $18 million—but for now they won’t say why. So for the time being, all real estate experts can do is attempt to predict what’s in store for the long-vacant and undeveloped section of Chicago’s Near South Side.

The first place to look for clues as to what the empty riverfront property could become is the site’s northerly neighbor: River City, a meandering S-shaped condo complex with its own private park and docks. This innovative piece of residential real estate was designed by renowned architect Bertrand Goldberg (the mastermind behind Chicago’s famous Mariana Towers—better known as the twin corncobs).

However, River City never reached its full potential: a large-scale, self-sufficient city-within-a-city composed of several 70-story skyscrapers linked by sky bridges. If Goldberg’s elaborate dream had been realized, the development would have snaked its way from Polk Street to Roosevelt Road, creating an all-in-one mini-community with everything from retail shops to school classrooms.

But maybe hope is still alive for the architect’s ambitious fantasy… The adjacent 5-acre parcel that was recently purchased by the U.S. Auction Opportunity Fund is apparently still overseen by the original development plan that River City passed through City Council some 21 years ago.

Planned Development 225 outlines specific regulations for what can be built at the site in question, providing possible hints about the future on the land. According to a recent article in the Chicago Journal, the existing development plan allots for construction of approximately 1,000 new residential units and some 570,000 square feet of commercial space. While the correlation between River City and the newly purchased real estate remains currently unconfirmed, some experts cannot help but make a connection between the two.

Comments (0)