WICKER PARK — A 200-unit residential and retail development around the corner from the CTA Division Blue Line stop was approved by the city's Planning Commission on Thursday after a year of meetings and design tweaks with neighborhood groups.
The next step will be to get the full approval of the City Council in August.
The largest proposed development for the area in recent memory, Wicker Park Connection would create a maze of homes anchored by retail storefronts in the 1600 block of West Division Street and the 1200 block of North Milwaukee Avenue.
The Centrum Partners development will be located next to a new 60-unit apartment building under construction at 1664 W. Division St.
In addition to the 15-story, 144-unit transit-orientated apartment tower, the plan offers 17 town homes and a seven-story, 38-unit condo building.
Each of the townhomes will have a two-car garage; the 38 condos will each have one parking spot; and residents of the 144-unit apartment tower would share 58 parking spaces in the building's basement. City designated transit-oriented housing developments such as this one are allowed to have fewer parking spaces.
In the rental tower, most of the units are studio or one-bedroom apartments and one-fifth are two- and three-bedroom units. There will be 20 onsite apartments for lower-income renters, in compliance with the city's Affordable Requirements Ordinance.
The apartment tower would be 11 stories on the Division-facing side. The building is an additional four stories high at the rear of the structure.
"This was the big step. It needs a [City] Council Vote, then it's good to go," said Ed Tamminga, chairman of the Wicker Park Committee's preservation and development subcommittee, a neighborhood group that worked closely with Centrum Partners on the project.
The plan was first introduced last August as a 275-unit development, mostly all rentals, but it was revised to include family-friendly townhomes.
It was later downsized to 200 dwellings, the amount that was voted upon on Thursday, according to the Planning Commission's agenda.
Executives from Centrum Partners did not respond to a request for comment.
Tamminga said he thinks the 144-unit apartment tower will be built first, followed by the condos and townhomes. Tamminga acknowledged that there are still folks with "serious reservations about the density and height of the tower."
The apartment tower will be across from an 11-story building at 1611 W. Division St. and within sight of the area's tallest building, the 28-story Noble Square Co-op.
A 7-story, 38-unit condo building, part of the Wicker Park Connection. [Hirsch and Associates].
A rendering of the Wicker Park connection's townhomes and public plaza. [Hirsch and Associates]
The site's layout and landscaping plan. [Forum and Hirsch Associates]
