CRAIN'S CHICAGO BUSINESS
June 22, 2018
DENNIS RODKIN
A 30-unit condo building with ground-floor retail would "anchor the revival of Lake Street in River Forest," according to the developer who is proposing it.
"It's going to be a statement building for Lake Street and River Forest," developer Marty Paris said of the building, called RF, which he plans for the southwest corner of Lake Street and Lathrop Avenue. Paris, a River Forest resident, is president of Chicago-based Sedgwick Development, which is partnered with Keystone Ventures of River Forest on the project.
As designed, the five-story building will have ground-floor commercial space along Lake Street, with four stories above of covered balconies lined with balustrades, "a traditional but dynamic design that's consistent with the traditional architecture in River Forest," Paris said.
River Forest's development review board is meeting to discuss the proposal June 28. The Sedgwick/Keystone partnership, called Lake and Lathrop, first proposed redeveloping the site in May 2016. Paris said construction should begun later this year and the condos would be ready for move-ins in late 2019.
While it's Sedgwick's first project in River Forest, the firm has completed multi-family projects in the city include one on Hermitage Avenue in Bucktown whose front facade lined with inset terraces inspired the design of RF, Paris said.
Each of the condos will have north-facing terrace of at least 250 square feet, Paris said, and second-floor units will also have south-facing terraces of about 1,200 feet. Every unit will have an elevator opening directly into the home, he said. Paris foresees the condos appealing to River Forest empty-nesters who want to downsize to a single-level home.
RF is one of two condo projects on the boards in River Forest. In March, village officials approved plans for a 15-unit building on Bonnie Brae Place (off Harlem Avenue) that would include converting three existing apartments to condos, for a total of 18 condos.
The Lake Street condominiums, in two-, three and four-bedroom layouts, are priced from just under $600,000 to just under $1.4 million. Sales are being handled by Jameson Sotheby's International Realty, which has an office across the street from the site. On Bonnie Brae, the units currently listed for sale, all three-bedrooms, are priced from about $800,000 to $1.07 million.
RF would span 250 feet along Lake Street, replacing a couple of existing buildings and surface parking. It would have 15,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, which Paris said he hopes to lease to "the kind of lifestyle retail, like fitness studios and restaurants," that make Lake Street in next-door Oak Park a vibrant strip.