18 buildings, new riverfront park planned for Chicago Tribune printing plant site

Google Maps

As the City continues to work behind the scenes to lure Amazon’s lucrative second headquarters to the Windy City, a third potential Chicago site for the tech campus has officially broken cover. Today, Tribune Media has released new renderings and details regarding its plan to redevelop its 30-acre Freedom Center printing plant property on the west bank of the Chicago River’s North Branch between Grand and Chicago avenues.

Previously understood to be in play for redevelopment, the valuable riverfront parcel flanks both sides of the Ohio Street bridge at the intersection of the neighborhoods of River North, River West, Goose Island, and Fulton River District. The mega-project would take advantage of revised zoning rules for the North Branch that have opened the area to new kinds of mixed, non-industrial use.

According to the Chicago Tribune and Crain's, both of which got a first look at the plan this morning, the redevelopment of 777 W. Chicago Avenue calls for 9 million square feet of both commercial and residential space spread across 18 buildings. Designed by Chicago architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB), this city in a city could support as many as 19,000 jobs and 5,900 residential units. Roughly 25 percent of the parcel will be set aside for park space and a riverwalk component.

Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Known as ‘The River District,’ the full 37-acre campus would also incorporate the 7-acre parcel north of Chicago Avenue that the Tribune is in the process of codeveloping with Riverside Investment & Development. Unveiled just days before Amazon’s announcement, plans for this northern segment include four buildings featuring 1.2 million square feet of loft-style office space, up to 310 residential units, and 4.5 acres of open space. Both parcels could be accessed via water taxi and perhaps even a new transitway or shuttle route running north-south through the site.

According to today’s reports, Tribune Media’s proposed River District has indeed been submitted to Amazon in a bid to land the tech company’s second corporate headquarters. Since releasing its Request for Proposal (RFP) for its so-called ‘HQ2’ development, multiple US cities have thrown their respective hats in the ring hoping to score the project which is expected to be worth tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment.

Solomon Cordwell Buenz

As far as potential Chicago sites, Tribune’s River District Plan joins two other plans that were officially unveiled in the past month. Developer Sterling Bay was the first to take the wraps off of its master plan to redevelop its riverfront holdings—including Lincoln Park’s former Finkl steel plant—into the mixed-use Lincoln Yards project.

Two weeks later, 601W Companies released a detailed look at its own plan to redevelop Chicago’s Old Post Office. While City Hall is keeping the lid tight on the full list of Chicago sites vying for Amazon, its also understood that Related Midwest’s 62-acre property north of Chinatown as well as the former Michael Reese Hospital in Bronzeville are also part of the Windy City’s bid package.

It’s worth noting that all of the aforementioned development projects were in the works well before Amazon ever dangled the HQ2 contract over basically all of North America. “Regardless of what happens with Amazon, we’re not going to take our eye off the prize, which is creating a unique, mixed-use district along the river,” Murray McQueen, president of Tribune Real Estate, told Tribune reporter Ryan Ori today.

As far as timing is concerned, the River District project will reportedly file its formal Planned Development (PD) zoning application with the City of Chicago today. Provided the plan is approved in a timely manner, the multi-phase high-rise development is expected to take a decade to realize. The timeline could slip ever further if the existing Freedom Center building sticks around longer. Tribune Media’s lease to Chicago Tribune parent company Tronc runs to 2023 and includes two options to extend the deal another 10 years.

Solomon Cordwell Buenz

• Massive development along Chicago River's North Branch is new option for Amazon HQ2 [Chicago Tribune]
• Tribune Media unveils bold plan for Freedom Center site [Crain’s]
• North Branch plan to clear path for Tribune printing plant redevelopment [Curbed Chicago]