One of River North’s last lingering surface lots is officially on borrowed time. A mixed-use project at 310 West Huron has cleared a key City Hall hurdle, with Chicago signing off on construction of the building’s top floors even as crews keep drilling caissons on the site. The nine-story development will replace the parking lot between Franklin and Orleans with 149 apartments and ground-floor retail, and developer ZSD Corp is still aiming to wrap construction in 2027.
According to Chicago YIMBY, a City of Chicago permit issued December 16 applies specifically to the building’s eighth and ninth floors, finishing a permitting sequence that started in November. Earlier permits covered the foundation and core for the first seven floors at a reported cost of about $7 million, while the full-building filing for the top two stories came in at roughly $24 million.
Caissons and site prep
An earlier caisson permit, issued in November, cleared the way for piles and heavy equipment to roll onto the site, Urbanize Chicago reported. That foundation and superstructure permitted the core to rise to the seventh-floor ceiling, so vertical work on the upper stories could move ahead once the final sign-off landed.
Design, units, and amenities
Developer materials show the nine-story building will offer a mix of studios, convertibles and one- to three-bedroom layouts, including 11 two-story duplex units with private patios or balconies and about 3,800 square feet of ground-floor retail, per project listings from ZSD Corp. Amenity space is planned for the top floor and rooftop, with a coworking room, fitness center, lounges and outdoor terraces reserved for residents.
Zoning, parking and neighborhood trade-offs
The project received zoning variations that cut the off-street parking requirement from 65 spaces to 21 and allowed residential units below the second floor, a decision the Zoning Board of Appeals approved earlier, Urbanize Chicago reported. Parking will be accessed from the alley between North Franklin and North Orleans, while a small pocket park is planned at the west end of the lot to preserve a slice of open space along Orleans.
Site, contractors and transit
Construction photos and on-site reporting show caisson rigs and other heavy equipment in action, with Chicago YIMBY naming Thatcher Foundations of Gary, Indiana, as the contractor handling the caisson operations. The site sits within a block of the Brown and Purple Line elevated entrance at Superior and Franklin, and CTA routes 37 and 66 stop two blocks north at Chicago Avenue, although the 66 is temporarily rerouted while a nearby bridge is reconstructed.
What comes next
With the full building permit in hand, ZSD and its contractors can keep pushing the core and superstructure through the final two stories and the rooftop amenity level, with unit build-outs and finishes expected to follow. ZSD Corp still lists a 2027 completion target on its project page, and neighbors can expect active construction on the nearly block-long site through the coming year.
