Commuters on the Brown Line have a new sideshow outside their train windows, as foundation work rolls ahead on a five-story, 48-unit rental building at 750 West Chicago Avenue on the southern edge of Lincoln Park. Developer Base 3 secured a full building permit on September 22, and the telltale pile-driving and excavation work is now clearly visible from the tracks.
Project Details And Timeline
By November, the site had shifted from a quiet lot to an active construction zone, with piles, shoring, and site prep crowding up next to the elevated tracks while crews get ready for full foundation work. Red Architects is on the books as the designer, and Base 3 is pulling double duty as both developer and general contractor as the property moves from demolition and clearance into early vertical construction. Those details, along with the permit history, were first outlined by Chicago YIMBY.
Developer And Design
Base 3 runs what founder Gabe Horstick describes as a vertically integrated shop, keeping both development and construction work in-house. That setup, he noted, helps the firm handle tight urban sites like this one and keep designers and contractors on the same page when space is at a premium. The approach was broken down in detail on a recent episode of the Real Estate Chicago Style Podcast.
Amenities And Units
Permits call for a shared rooftop deck, a 15-space parking garage off the alley, storage for about 50 bicycles, and roughly 2,300 square feet of retail space facing North Avenue at street level. Upstairs, the building is set to offer a mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom rental units. Base 3 is targeting a spring 2027 opening for first move-ins, although pricing has not yet been released. These program details were described in a report from Chicago YIMBY.
Transit And Neighborhood Context
Although the parcel tucks under a curving stretch of the Brown Line, residents will not be short on transit options once the building opens. The site sits within a short walk of Red Line service at North/Clybourn and is covered by CTA bus routes 8 and 72 at Halsted and North Avenue. That level of transit access goes a long way toward explaining the relatively lean parking count and the outsized emphasis on bike storage. For more on the surrounding rail hub, see the North/Clybourn station page on the Chicago L.
What Comes Next
With foundation work active on site, the project is positioned to climb out of the ground through 2026, weather and permits cooperating, as it heads toward the projected spring 2027 lease-up. When complete, the five-story, 48-unit building will slip a modest bump of new rental housing and a small retail space into the already busy North Avenue corridor. Expect more filings, renderings, and leasing teasers to surface as construction moves past the foundation stage.
