A three-story frame residence built in 1895 at 1517 W. School St. in Lake View is set to be demolished to make way for a four-unit luxury condominium building carrying a reported construction cost of $2 million. The city issued the permit on August 27, permitting Bak Home Development to erect a three-story-plus-basement building on a site that combines two lots, with units expected to hit the market priced between $1.55 million and $1.675 million.
The demolition and new construction were first detailed by Chicago YIMBY, which reported that the permit application was filed on June 30 and took 58 days to clear the city's plan review process. That timeline tracks closely with the 8-to-10-week standard turnaround for Chicago building permits, according to Illinois Policy, rather than the faster 10-to-14-day self-certification route available for some qualifying projects.
Before construction can begin, the existing frame residence must come down, along with a detached garage situated off the alley behind the property that has capacity for five cars and includes its own roof deck. The new building will replace that garage, and likely another one, per the report. The finished condominium building is planned to include roof decks on the main structure as well, with the development also incorporating the side yard to the west of the property into its footprint.
Why This Frame Home Faces No Landmark Delay
Unlike buildings flagged in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey as Red or Orange, which trigger a mandatory 90-day landmark review hold under the city's 2003 Demolition Delay Ordinance, this unrated 19th-century frame house can be razed without that preservation delay. Preservation Chicago's framework on the ordinance, as reported by Hoodline's earlier coverage of a similar teardown on Diversey Parkway, explains why the city can move quickly on lots like this one. That same pattern is playing out across several North Side blocks this year, including at a former pub site covered in Hoodline's report on a 20-unit Lakeview building replacing an older commercial structure.
The Cook County property records show the 3,125-square-foot lot carried an assessed valuation of $91,000 in 2024 and generated an annual property tax bill of $6,578 before its assemblage and redevelopment, according to Zillow figures cited by Chicago YIMBY's report. That modest tax baseline stands in sharp contrast to the $2 million project now planned for the same footprint.
Team Behind the Project Has Done This Before
Bachula Development is serving as general contractor on the project, with Matthew J. Skoda as architect of record. The same trio of Bak Home Development, Bachula, and Skoda previously teamed up on a nearly identical four-unit duplex condo building at 2644 N. Lakewood Ave. in Lincoln Park, a $2 million project permitted in late 2025, according to Chicago YIMBY's earlier construction update. The condominium units at School Street will likely consist of two duplex-down units and two duplex-up homes, the outlet reported, with the building depicted in a Redfin listing as clad in light-grey brick.
The Redfin listing for the property is attributed to Jameson Sotheby's, and the $1.55 million to $1.675 million price range for the units came from an Instagram post cited in the report. Completion of the condos is expected in 2027.
Transit Rules and a Tight Market Set the Stage
The site sits roughly 0.3 miles east of the CTA Brown Line's Paulina station, putting it within a five-minute walk of rapid transit and the commercial retail corridor along Southport Avenue, per Redfin's listing details. That proximity matters under Chicago's Connected Communities Ordinance, adopted by the City Council in July 2022, which allows residential parcels within a half-mile of CTA rail stations to increase housing unit density and reduce off-street parking mandates by right, according to the City of Chicago.
The project is also arriving into an unusually tight Lake View housing market. As of July, the 60657 ZIP code recorded a median home sale price between $622,000 and $683,000, up more than 9% year-over-year, with 63.4% of homes selling above list price and a median market time of just 8 days, per Zillow data. North Side condo inventory has fallen nearly 28% year-over-year, according to Chicago Association of Realtors figures cited in Hoodline's earlier reporting on the trend of landlords flipping rentals, leaving an estimated 10 to 15 active buyers for every listed condo unit.
The School Street property is zoned to Augustus H. Burley Elementary School, a Level 1+ public school located 0.3 miles away at 1630 W. Barry Ave., and Lake View High School, located roughly 1.0 mile from the site, according to Redfin. Bak Home Development's typical design template for its North Side condo projects features custom chef's kitchens with Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, 12-foot window walls, and dual private outdoor spaces for each unit, based on listings for its comparable Lincoln Park development.
