One of the busiest developers in Chicago’s Fulton Market district is looking to sell a big site near Google’s Midwest headquarters where it hopes to soon have zoning approvals in hand for an apartment project of more than 550 units.
Sterling Bay has hired JLL brokers to seek a sale of the 48,383-square-foot site at 345 N. Aberdeen St., which the Chicago developer bought for almost $20.8 million in July 2021.
The site is kitty-corner from the former Fulton Market Cold Storage building, which Sterling Bay bought more than a decade ago and redeveloped into the Google-anchored 1KFulton office building. That project was one of the key drivers of rapid changes to the once-gritty neighborhood west of the Loop business district.
Fulton Market in recent years became the fastest-growing urban office market in the country, according to a CoStar analysis, and a new wave of multifamily development is well underway.
It’s not clear why Sterling Bay is looking to cash in on the Aberdeen Street site along train tracks rather than developing the land, and the firm did not immediately respond to request for comment from CoStar News on Wednesday.
JLL materials suggest Sterling Bay expects to significantly increase the land’s value by obtaining a zoning change allowing for far greater density. “It is expected that the entitlements will be secured on or before the closing date,” the materials say, for a residential project with about 559 units.
Before Sterling Bay bought the site less than three years ago, the former Cougle Commission poultry processing facility was one of the last holdouts to sell property in recent years as the former meatpacking district has undergone a wave of high-rise developments that have caused property values to soar. Many food companies, including Cougle, have cashed in on their real estate and moved to new locations in Chicago or the suburbs.
The one-story former food processing building is likely to be demolished by the new owner.
Sterling Bay has played a major role in changes within Fulton Market, including the Google deal and landing McDonald’s global headquarters for a ground-up development in a move from Chicago’s western suburbs. That project was on the former site of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios.
Zoning changes and the area’s growing foot traffic have contributed to an acceleration of residential development in more recent years. That includes Related Midwest’s completion of the neighborhood’s tallest building, the 495-foot-tall, 300-unit The Row Fulton Market.
In the latest announced plan, Shapack Partners and CRG said they will start construction soon on a 29-story, 308-unit apartment project at 220 N. Ada St.
Sterling Bay’s Aberdeen Street site is not far from the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, one of the Irish company's two U.S. facilities, which opened last year at 901 W. Kinzie St.
Sterling Bay’s first two apartment projects in Fulton Market are the 282-unit The Dylan at 160 N. Morgan St. and a 28-story, 350-unit building at 225 N. Elizabeth St. The firm also is working on plans for a 29-story, 390-unit apartment project at 370 N. Carpenter St., where a low-rise office building that it owns now stands.
The developer also has a few apartment projects in the works near its long-planned, $6 billion Lincoln Yards megadevelopment on the North Side.
For the Record
The seller is represented by JLL brokers Dan Reynolds and Jack Hubbard.