City Selling Largely Vacant Rogers Park Lot — Preferably For Housing And A Community Garden

ROGERS PARK — The city is selling a long-undeveloped lot on the Far North Side, hoping a builder will bring housing to the site.

The 46,000-square-foot lot at the corner of Howard Street and Ashland Avenue in Rogers Park is owned by the city, and it’s been the home of a community garden for years. The city listed it for about $2 million, according to the Department of Planning and Development.

The listing of the property comes after years of the city working to develop the site.

Ald. Maria Hadden’s 49th Ward office in 2020 asked neighbors what they wanted to see at the lot to inform future requests for proposals. Things like housing and green space have seemed popular, residents have previously said.

At a community open house last week, planning department officials told neighbors what sort of proposals they’d like to see from developers interested in the lot.

Preference will be given to proposals that include building cooperative housing, a type of shared ownership housing that offers pathways to homeownership for low- to moderate-income earners and preserves affordable housing, according to the city’s property listing .

The city would also like a proposal to maintain open space for the Hello Howard community garden that’s operated on the site since 2014, according to the planning department.

Ideally, the tallest and most dense part of the housing would be along the Howard Street side of the property, with ground-floor retail space.

The most recent effort to develop the property came in 2019, when a nonprofit proposed building 81 units of LGBTQ+-friendly senior housing and artist live/work space , but the project did not move forward .

A request for proposals for the site was announced in 2013 , one year after the city took over the lot that used to house the Lerner Newspapers printing operations. In 2006, the city sought a developer for the site in an eminent domain acquisition, but no one showed interest, according to DNAinfo Chicago .

Interested developers can attend a webinar hosted by the city to discuss the sale and applicant criteria 2-3 p.m. Oct. 22. Registration details are here .

The application deadline is Jan. 3, according to the planning department.

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