Chicago aims to eventually turn empty office space into 1,765 mixed-income housing units.
Downtown Chicago's first completed office-to-housing conversion project opened earlier this month in the central business district. The Rector building, now called the Bellwether, is the first of six office conversion projects that the Chicago Department of Planning Development is considering.
“Using $28 million in tax increment financing from the city and a historic landmark designation that opened up $7.8 million in federal tax credits, the developers of the 14-story Rector building turned 11 floors of unused office space into 117 residential units, 41 of them earmarked for households earning an average of 60% of the area median income,” Smart Cities Dive reports.
Chicago’s LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative aims to turn unused office spaces into 1,765 mixed-income housing units. Chicago also expects to see nearly two-dozen private conversions of office buildings into housing, which are expected to create around 4,000 new residential units, Ryan Kushner writes for Smart Cities Dive.
Read the full story: With its first office-to-housing project done, Chicago advances ‘next chapter’ for its downtown
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