Range Group's Fulton Market apartments reach the Plan Commission

Range Group’s plan to build 110 apartments on a former Sterling Bay parcel in Fulton Market went before the Chicago Plan Commission on Oct. 15, the next step in a rezoning request that started with a July land sale.

Why it matters

AmDev reported in July that Sterling Bay, the developer that built Fulton Market’s office boom, was selling the 27,714-square-foot site at 1133 W. Kinzie St. to Range Group, which planned a residential mid-rise instead. The Plan Commission hearing is the milestone that turns that filing into a live entitlement case, and it marks how far the district’s shift from office to housing has traveled, past the announcement and into an actual zoning vote.

The numbers

The application, filed under the name MKR Owner LLC, asks the city to rezone the site from M2-3 industrial to DX-5 downtown mixed-use for a five-story building with a maximum of 110 units and 33 parking spaces, at a floor area ratio up to 5. Fifteen percent of units, or 17 apartments, would be set aside as affordable on site, with a fee in lieu covering the remaining 5 percent required under the city’s affordability ordinance. The Plan Commission packet includes the full as-filed application and the public comments submitted ahead of the hearing.

What’s next

A Plan Commission hearing is a recommendation step, not a final approval: the project still needs the Committee on Zoning and a vote of the full City Council before Range Group can break ground. For developers watching Fulton Market’s transition, the signal to track is how quickly the city moves this one from hearing to vote, since the industrial-to-residential rezoning path here is the one more Fulton Market landowners are expected to follow. More on the project: Sterling Bay’s July land sale. More on the market: Chicago.