City pitches sale, redevelopment of 18-acre riverfront facility

Another piece of Chicago’s rapidly-evolving North Branch Industrial Corridor puzzle is falling into place as Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to unload an 18-acre city-owned parcel near Goose Island to private developers. Currently serving as the maintenance garage and headquarters of the City of Chicago’s Department of Fleet and Facility Management, the massive riverfront complex at 1685 N. Throop—and its roughly 200 jobs—will be relocated to a new facility slated for the intersection of Wentworth and Marquette at the former Kennedy King College campus in Englewood on the city’s south side.

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As part of the sale transaction, any potential private developer of the North Branch site will be required to finance the construction of the new south side facility, reports the Chicago Tribune. In this regard, the 2FM announcement is not dissimilar to the Mayor Emmanuel’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund which was adopted to leverage private real estate development in booming areas such as the West Loop and the Near North Side to help stimulate reinvestment in the Windy City’s underserved and struggling communities.

Considering that Goose Island has emerged as a hub of high-tech office space and manufacturing, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to see the 2FM parcel follow suit. That said, recent land-use scenarios presented by the city’s Department of Planning and Development could see the site — along with the sprawling former Finkl Steel land — reborn as a new mix-used development.

DPD

• Emanuel to move maintenance garage to Englewood, sell Goose Island site [Chicago Tribune]
• Remaking Goose Island, One of Chicago's Great Industrial Hubs [Curbed Chicago]
• Goose Island archives [Curbed Chicago]