Magellan Development Group, one of Chicago’s leading real estate developers, has been selected to develop a $50 million mixed-use project in the city’s Ravenswood neighborhood anchored by a Roundy’s supermarket.
Situated on a 6.5-acre site owned by Sears Holding Co. near the corner of Lawrence and Ravenswood avenues on Chicago’s North Side, if approved the proposed development, designed by Magellan affiliate Loewenberg Architects, would also include a health club, a Sears auto center and a four-level parking garage. The garage would be used by shoppers and commuters from a nearby Metra station.
Partnering with Magellan in the project are Sears Holding Co, parent of Sears, which may remain the landowner, and brokerage firm Sierra Realty Advisers. The site is currently used for a Sears auto center and a surface parking lot for the Metra commuters and shoppers at the Sears Department Store at 1900 Lawrence Ave. to the west.
Development remains contingent on several factors: a full community vote scheduled for May 27; approval by the city since the site requires rezoning; and the provision of some tax-increment Association” (TIF) by the city.
Magellan was retained for the development to a large degree because of a pre-existing relationship with Milwaukee-based Roundy’s Supermarkets. A Roundy’s grocery store, which has been named Mariano’s Fresh Market after Roundy’s CEO Bob Mariano, is the anchor tenant of a 105,000-square-foot Village Market Center now under construction at Magellan’s $4 billion Lakeshore East community in downtown Chicago.
That facility, also named Mariano’s, will be a 55,000-square-foot bi-level market, the first large-scale grocery store on the New East Side neighborhood and will be the first in Chicago developed by Roundy’s, which operates 154 retail grocery stores and 88 pharmacies in the Midwest under a variety of names, including Pick ‘n Save.
According to Brian Gordon, Magellan vice president of development, if approved promptly the Ravenswood facility, which has been endorsed by 47th Ward Alderman Gene Shulter, should be ready by spring 2012.
According to Gordon, the Ravenswood facility would be a three-level facility with Mariano’s occupying about 80,000 square feet on the first two levels. The gym would occupy 45,000 square feet on the third level. About 7,000 square feet would be available for other retail tenants on the first level. The development plan also includes a second building that would have a 4-level parking garage for Metra commuters that would also house the Sears auto center..
About 3.5 acres of the site will remain vacant and it is expected that it may eventually be incorporated for a residential development by Magellan or another developer.
Gordon notes that while the site plan was previously envisioned for an 11-story condominium development, that plan put on hold. Nonetheless, the vacant portion of the site may yet be utilized for residential use under more favorable economic circumstances.
For additional information, please contact Brian Gordon at 312-642-8869.
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