CHICAGO | General Developments

[Via Chicago]

and now all the people moving to Fulton can live in a bland homogeneous neighborhood just like the one they came from...and a pay a premium markup for the exact same product by shopping at Whole Foods.

Im sure JP Grazianos, Northwestern Cutlery, and Olympic will follow suit.

[J_M_Tungsten]

Ugh I hope not JP Grazianos. That place is great

[Jim in Chicago]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

and now all the people moving to Fulton can live in a bland homogeneous neighborhood just like the one they came from...and a pay a premium markup for the exact same product by shopping at Whole Foods.

Im sure JP Grazianos, Northwestern Cutlery, and Olympic will follow suit.

I will cry if Northwestern Cutlery goes away.

[streetline]

JP Grazianos and Northwestern Cutlery seem a bit more likely to survive, since they have a significant retail angle. I was hoping that Isaacson and Stein would go in that direction, and team up with a chef to open a seafood focused restaurant adjoining their store. Oh well.

If we have to lose them, it seems a shame we aren't getting more than a two-story retail space out of it. At least they're keeping part of the façade of the taller loft building.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by streetline

JP Grazianos and Northwestern Cutlery seem a bit more likely to survive, since they have a significant retail angle. I was hoping that Isaacson and Stein would go in that direction, and team up with a chef to open a seafood focused restaurant adjoining their store. Oh well.

If we have to lose them, it seems a shame we aren't getting more than a two-story retail space out of it. At least they're keeping part of the façade of the taller loft building.

i dont see how theyre immune from the same market forces. if someone approaches JP with the same sort of offer (im assuming they own their property), im not sure how long theyd be willing to hold out. do you continue selling sandwiches for $8, or do you retire to southern italy?

this is one of my major gripe with chicago though, that we have so few of these wholesale sorts of markets open to the public to begin with, and the few we do have are leaving. seafood especially is difficult to source in chicago, and you are basically left to the 3 kinds of overpriced and questionably sourced cuts at the grocery store ("heres some farm raised salmon with dye added, and heres some tilapia from china..."). if its not a big box corporate chain, then it seemingly isnt allowed to exist here.

same with restaurant supply stores. Sur La Table vs Northwest Cutlery or Herzog Supply...i think you know my choice

[the urban politician]

What's the point of calling it the Fulton Market District and landmarking it when all you are really doing is ushering out the businesses that were there in the first place? That's what gets me about landmarking an economically vulnerable district that still is serving the purpose for which you are landmarking it.

[ithakas]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

What's the point of calling it the Fulton Market District and landmarking it when all you are really doing is ushering out the businesses that were there in the first place? That's what gets me about landmarking an economically vulnerable district that still is serving the purpose for which you are landmarking it.

So you can open the Meatpacking Museum there 30 years after the neighborhood's been jammed with million dollar condos?

[TimeAgain]

Are these companies being "driven out" or are they just cashing out on the increased value of their real estate? If it's the latter, then it might be a great boon to other neighborhoods as they relocate there.

[Rizzo]

^ Clearly cashing out. If you are a business and want to grow, selling your antiquated building for a nice windfall of capital for a new space and new equipment is a wise option. The neighborhood has provided less and less utility for these businessses to exist except for the restaurants that buy their products. But that's what delivery trucks are for.

[the urban politician]

Surprised nobody posted the news from Crains that the former Threadless headquarters is being bought by a developer with plans to demo and redevelop into office space.

The West Loop is going through some serious changes

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by TimeAgain

Are these companies being "driven out" or are they just cashing out on the increased value of their real estate? If it's the latter, then it might be a great boon to other neighborhoods as they relocate there.

A little of both - I've seen articles about some companies being priced out and there are some that are clearly just cashing out (probably I&S and probably Coyne for example).

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Surprised nobody posted the news from Crains that the former Threadless headquarters is being bought by a developer with plans to demo and redevelop into office space.

The West Loop is going through some serious changes

This one? The developer actually bought it nearly a decade ago.

West Loop office campus planned near new McDonald's HQ

JRG Capital Partners is proposing one or two larger structures on a 75,000-square-foot site it owns at 1260 W. Madison St., said Chicago office leasing broker Matt Ward, a senior managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.

Ward and Melissa Porcelli, a senior associate at New York-based NGKF, have begun marketing the potential redevelopment to large office tenants on behalf of JRG, with the new space available as soon as mid-2019, according to Ward.

“The McDonald's deal was a real watershed moment for that market,” Ward said. “With McDonald's landing there, we felt the timing was good to begin marketing this project to some senior tenant brokers in town."

The current 45,392-square-foot building, which JRG bought for just under $11 million in 2007, is leased to T-shirt maker Threadless through the end of 2017, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group. Threadless, which has moved to 401 N. Morgan St., is subleasing its space to other tenants through 2017, Ward said.

The building could be demolished as soon as January 2018, with a redevelopment completed as soon as mid-2019, he said. The campus most likely would go to a single tenant.

JRG could design one or two buildings on the site with offices and other potential uses such as laboratories or showroom space, Ward said. He declined estimate the likely size of the development, saying it depends on the tenant's preference, but the project could create hundreds of thousands of square feet of new space, based on the size of the site.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...s-headquarters

[marothisu]

So that one building on a vacant lot (853 N Larrabee) received its foundation building permit two days ago). Here is the article from Curbed. They mention 49 units, but the permit mentions 42 units.

ALSO, just up the street at a vacant lot at 943 N Crosby, a permit was issued last friday for 27 units + commercial building. I vaguely remember it being talked about on here maybe last year, but don't remember what it's supposed to look like. Here's the site today:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8998...7i13312!8i6656

[Near North Resident]

Originally Posted by marothisu

ALSO, just up the street at a vacant lot at 943 N Crosby, a permit was issued last friday for 27 units + commercial building. I vaguely remember it being talked about on here maybe last year, but don't remember what it's supposed to look like. Here's the site today:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8998...7i13312!8i6656

Its this lil guy http://chicago.curbed.com/2013/10/28...t-larrabee-oak

glad to see its happening I was wondering about that lot just the other day and when it was finally going to get developed

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Fish wholesaler sells Fulton Market property

A Fulton Market fish wholesaler sold its buildings to a developer for $9 million, becoming the latest food company to cash in on soaring property values in the fast-changing area.

The owners of Isaacson & Stein Fish on Sept. 30 sold its connected buildings at 800 and 810 W. Fulton Market to Chicago-based R2, which plans to convert the property to flagship retail space, said R2 Managing Director Matt Garrison

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...ers-sold-to-r2

Silver lining: maybe the Mid will also go away?

[maru2501]

I would love to see the city somehow get involved and put an actual large market with stalls etc in this area

[Via Chicago]

Id love to have something comparable to some of the toronto markets

it seems like Fulton would have been our best opportunity for that, but its hard to make happen when the market itself physically disappears and is replaced by luxury hotels and Banana Republics..

otherwise all we get is some version of the French Market or Chelsea Market, which are fine for what they are, but theyre "concepts" not places that grew organically. which is what makes markets intersting in the first place. as Americans we seem to love tearing down the real thing only to replace it with a cartoon sanitized version of itself...and that goes for a lot of things.

[marothisu]

I would love that too - they have disappeared in most American cities - even in NYC. Though what NYC has that i wish we had were more pure produce places. My girlfriend's neighborhood in Queens has a 24/7 produce place and the produce can be bought just passing on the street - don't even need to step into the structure for some of it.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I would love that too - they have disappeared in most American cities - even in NYC. Though what NYC has that i wish we had were more pure produce places. My girlfriend's neighborhood in Queens has a 24/7 produce place and the produce can be bought just passing on the street - don't even need to step into the structure for some of it.

completely agree. the fact that so much of our inner city shopping has been relegated to big box stores in the last 20 years i think just demonstrates how suburbanized our cities have become.

we can talk about how great TOD is all day, but if the street level experience dosent significantly change from a fine grained standpoint, i dont think were necessarily moving forward. the default solution is every single time, "well just plop a massive marianos down and call it a day"

again, the irony is that we seem to constantly be wanting our cities to resemble the way they were in the 1950s, and every action we take is in reality pushing them further and further from that

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

completely agree. the fact that so much of our inner city shopping has been relegated to big box stores in the last 20 years i think just demonstrates how suburbanized our cities have become.

we can talk about how great TOD is all day, but if the street level experience dosent significantly change from a fine grained standpoint, i dont think were necessarily moving forward. the default solution is every single time, "well just plop a massive marianos down and call it a day"

again, the irony is that we seem to constantly be wanting our cities to resemble the way they were in the 1950s, and every action we take is in reality pushing them further and further from that

Yeah, agreed. TOD is great, but only when it has a combination of good street level activity (i.e. retail, commercial, whatever else). To be fair though, Manhattan doesn't have much of what I described anymore. They do have places where you can get that, but most of the street level stuff you can buy are actually just flowers. Most of the bodegas aren't great if you want actual groceries apart from some soft drinks/energy drinks, some snack food, cereal, and some prepared food/sandwiches.

Here's the place I was talking about in her Queens neighborhood:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7661...7i13312!8i6656