Ex-Lincoln Logs Factory By Bloomingdale Trail for Rent at 606's West End

HUMBOLDT PARK — A massive factory that produced Lincoln Logs toy sets in the 1960s needs new tenants, according to the building's landlord.

The building, at the western end of The 606's Bloomingdale Trail, has rents as low as $6 per square foot to entice entrepreneurs.

"We'd like to put something here so people have a destination, some place to come and hang out at the end or beginning of the trail. It's like one big party now; the Wicker Park people meet the Humboldt Park people and vice versa. It's just going to keep going with more synergy," said Don Glisovich of the 2.7-mile long elevated trail that runs through Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square and Humboldt Park.

Glisovich and two partners from Marc Realty bought the three-story, 69,000-square-foot red brick and timber factory at 1750 N. Lawndale Ave. for $850,000 in January, according to county records.   

The Bloomingdale Trail runs next to the loft-style industrial building and stops at Lawndale, the western-most street on the popular path which opened in June. 

"The trail and the history of building attracted us to the space," Glisovich said.

The building is on the market for $3 million but Glisovich said he's looking for tenants too, such as a brewery, coffee roaster, theater, cafe, or bike shop. All could all be good fits for the space spanning over an acre of land, he said.

Wilfredo Aguilar, a friend of Glisovich's and a local realtor, said his parents met in 1967 while working in the Lincoln Logs factory, his mother on the 3rd floor and dad on the 1st.

When Aguilar was a teenager, "I walked by [the building] all the time on the way to my grandmother's who lived on Lawndale," he said, describing the old factory as "a special place with a lot of history."

Glisovich said rent for the factory's first floor is $12 per square foot, while the second floor is $6 per square foot.

Currently 20,000 square-feet is available, through by the end of next year, the entire 69,000-square-foot former factory will be for rent once the current tenant, a woodworking company, moves out, Glisovich said.

Lincoln Logs were developed by John Lloyd Wright, the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, between 1916 and 1917, according to the Chicago Historical Society. Production of the toys at shifted to China for decades, though they are now made in Burnham, Maine.

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