HIGH DEMAND FOR RIVERFRONT TOWNHOMES PROMPTS EXPANSION AT NORTH BRANCH SITE
The new parcel will feature 9 new residences.
CRAIN'S CHICAGO BUSINESS
August 26, 2026
Dennis Rodkin
With contracts in for most of the units at its townhouse development beside the North Branch of the Chicago River, a residential builder is picking up a site next door for an expansion.
At Riverward, a former industrial site where ZSD launched a development of 35 townhouses at $1 million-plus in April 2025, 28 units have buyers under contract, according to the firm’s principal, Zev Salomon. ZSD is now buying a smaller parcel to its immediate west for $3 million, Salomon told Crain’s, and will build another 14 units.
“It’s because of demand,” Salomon said. “We’re in a very attractive pocket, with the river right there, the Costco everybody loves two blocks away and good public schools.” CPS’s Jahn Elementary and Lane Tech High School and the Catholic-run DePaul College Prep are all less than a mile from the site. So is the Costco on Clybourn.
The Chicago Plan Commission approved ZSD’s plan for the new site last week. The site, about six-tenths of an acre, used to hold a single-story industrial building, but that was demolished several years ago.
The first-phase homes are under construction now and are scheduled to begin delivering to buyers in November. The second phase will have five townhomes that mimic the first-phase units, creating a continuous look along the river frontage. The other nine will add a new element: each will have a back yard and a detached garage, a townhouse layout that is reminiscent of century-old rowhouse configurations in several Chicago neighborhoods.
The nine will also have a more traditional look than the contemporary style of Riverward’s first phase and the riverfront five in the second phase, he said. The image below shows the nine, with a traditional brick exterior. At the top of this story is the predominant look of the development.
The nine units with back yards will be priced from $1.7 million to $1.85 million, Salomon said, but prices have not yet been finalized for the five units that face the river. First-phase units that are under contract had asking prices between $1.16 million and $1.9 million, according to listings on Redfin. Brad Sadowski of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty is representing the homes in the second phase.
Riverward is just southeast of the intersection of Oakley and Oakdale avenues in North Center. In the image below, the first phase is at right and the planned second is at left, labelled units 36 to 49.
When complete, both pieces of the development will have a public walkway along the North Branch’s north bank, connecting to the half mile of riverwalk beside the rehabbed Lathrop Homes, an early Chicago Housing Authority development.
Salomon said he believes part of the appeal is that the homes are “single family-like, meaning a townhome” and not a condo, in a neighborhood where high demand is devouring the inventory.
The inventory of homes for sale in desirable North Center is very low, according to the Chicago Association of Realtors. The available number of single-family homes in July was enough to fuel less than one month’s demand, and for attached homes, such as townhomes, it was just a bit over two months.
In residential real estate, four to six months’ inventory constitutes a healthy, balanced market, though little of Chicago and the suburbs have that much inventory these days.