A large number of housing advocates at a Wednesday night community meeting in Lincoln Park voiced their support for Sterling Bay’s contentious 1804 N Marcey project.
The development, which would add more than 100 units of affordable housing, was previously rejected by the city’s Zoning Committee and missed a full City Council vote in December.
But the community meeting is the next step in triggering a provision in the city’s Connected Communities Ordinance, which would give the project automatic approval by the zoning committee and move it to a full Council vote.
The move would put Sterling Bay over the finish line for a project it first introduced in 2021. It would also challenge aldermanic prerogative, the longstanding process of alders wielding authority over new developments in their wards.
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) opposes the project. He expressed concern over the towers’ height and area congestion during a June 2024 Plan Commission meeting when the project was approved.
Waguespack did not respond to a request for comment.
Sterling Bay is proposing a 16-story and a 21-story building at 1840 N. Marcey St., near its Lincoln Yards development. The two-building project would have 615 total units, including 124 affordable. There will be retail and green space, as well as improved bike lanes and a new Divvy station. It also expects to create more than 3,200 construction jobs.
Units would be affordable for those making up to $47,100 a year. Market-rate one bedroom apartments would be about $3,600 per month. Two-bedroom units would rent for about $5,000, and three-bedrooms would be $8,000, according to Sterling Bay.
The project, called 1840 N Marcey, was designated as “inclusionary” by the city’s Department of Housing in December, according to Sterling Bay. That designation means the Marcey project is in line with city goals to provide more affordable housing in areas near transit options — and allows for a fast-track to Council approval.
Marisa Novara, vice president of community impact at Chicago Community Trust, was the Chicago Department of Housing commissioner when the Connected Communities Ordinance passed. She was a proponent of including the provision Sterling Bay will now pioneer.
Novara said Chicago shouldn’t “extract a pound of flesh every time someone tries to do what we already told them they could do — which is dense development with reduced parking and affordability near transit.”
“Community input is important, and we should be working to listen and adjust and work together,” Novara said. “But it’s important that people have a voice and not veto power when we have already, as a city, decided about the importance of density and affordability in these ways.”
Twenty percent of the apartments at 1840 N Marcey are affordable, according to Sterling Bay. It said only 13% of all the housing in Lincoln Park is affordable.
“[The designation] underscores the importance of creating additional affordable housing, and how that aligns not only with policy makers’ goals, but our goals and what we’re hearing in the community,” said Fred Krol, a managing director at Sterling Bay.
About 100 people attended Wednesday’s meeting, with many speaking about the dire need for more housing in Chicago, especially affordable units.
The development team said during the meeting that it’s proposing the CTA’s Clybourn bus line be reinstated.
“We know that this has been discontinued for awhile, so our recommendation … is to put some funding forward to do the upfront feasibility studies, and perhaps for CTA to run a pilot program,” said Luay Aboona, principal at engineering firm KLOA.
Shawn Ursini, with The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, said the city can’t afford to drag its feet on projects like Sterling Bay’s, which is reaching the four-year mark.
He also pointed to other cities, like Columbus, Ohio, that are outpacing Chicago in building more apartments.
“We invented the skyscraper,” Ursini said. “We’re behind the times.”
Neighborhood group Ranch Triangle Community Conservation Association isn’t on board. The association’s president, Erma Tranter, stressed that the organization isn’t opposed to new or affordable housing in the corridor — she and other neighbors are against the height. Several neighbors asked about the possibility of taking away units and lowering the density.
“We support residential. We support affordable housing — the whole thing can be affordable housing,” Tranter said. “It is just too dense and out of scale.”