Lincoln Yards, Chicago's Controversial $6 Billion Mega-Project, Set to Break Ground

"Sterling Bay plans to break ground on the $6 billion Lincoln Yards megadevelopment early next year, starting with an eight-story, 320,000-square-foot building along the Chicago River," reports Ryan Ori.

"Work on the long-anticipated and controversial project, expected to bring thousands of employees and residents to the property, is nearing despite a pandemic that has all but stopped new real estate projects from getting underway," according to Ori.

Ori provides more details on this first component of the project, and the developer's progress in marketing the new building to biotech companies expected to fill the new offices and lab spaces included in the project. The developer has already begun placing tenants in a life science building separate from the Lincoln Yards redevelopment area as a kind of "tenant pipeline" for the new building, according to Ori.

A lot of the news about the Lincoln Yards, since the project achieved final necessary legislative approvals in April 2020, has focused on matters tangential to the actual development like reform of the tax increment financing program in the city that created controversy for the project throughout the approvals process, as well as a plan to connect the 606 elevated bike and pedestrian path to the redevelopment area.