The long-vacant Milshire Hotel at 2525 N. Milwaukee Ave could soon become 30 apartments and two ground-floor retail spaces, under a new proposal from Milshire Hotel LLC that would convert the century-old building without adding a single parking spot. The four-story brick structure, midblock between N. Sacramento Ave and N. Kedzie Blvd, has sat empty for 12 years since closing as a single-room occupancy residence in 2014.
The redevelopment plan, first reported by Urbanize Chicago, would retain the building's existing envelope and massing while converting the interior into 30 residential units. The unit mix includes 21 studios, seven one-bedroom units, one two-bedroom unit, and one three-bedroom unit spread across the upper floors, with each of those floors holding nine residential units. Kennedy Mann designed the project, according to Urbanize Chicago's reporting, and the developer is seeking a rezoning of the site to move the plan forward.
On the ground floor, the plan calls for two retail spaces fronting Milwaukee Avenue with new aluminum storefronts, a central residential lobby between them, and three additional residential units tucked toward the back of the building. The existing hotel sign is intended to remain in place and would be restored, and the building would also get replacement windows, per the same account.
A Building With a Complicated Past
The Milshire's history stretches back to the 1920s, when it opened as a weekly transient hotel before eventually becoming a 70-unit SRO. Prior to its 2014 sale, the building was the site of tenant union organizing, municipal code complaints over bedbug and rat infestations, and an eviction lawsuit that ultimately settled with remaining tenants receiving $4,000 relocation payouts per unit, according to the DNAinfo reporting from that period.
Property owner M. Fishman & Co., operating through 2525 Milwaukee LLC, bought the building for $2.4 million from longtime owner Art Fischoff in November 2014. The sale closed on November 11, 2014 — exactly one day before Chicago's City Council passed the “Chicago For All” SRO Preservation Ordinance, which would have required a six-month negotiation window for affordable-housing buyers had it taken effect sooner. That timing sparked tenant protests and intense public debate over gentrification and the loss of low-income housing, DNAinfo reported. The episode fit into a broader citywide pattern: between 2008 and 2014, Chicago lost roughly 30 licensed SRO buildings and more than 2,000 low-cost units to market-rate redevelopment, leaving about 70 such properties still operating by late 2014, according to the City of Chicago.
Saving the Sign, Then Nearly Losing It
The Milshire's 15-foot-tall vintage neon blade sign, believed to date to the 1930s or 1940s, is one of the few original neon corridor signs still standing on Milwaukee Avenue. In May 2022, M. Fishman & Co. listed the sign for public auction with a $5,000 starting bid, but withdrew it after public outcry and a fundraising drive by Logan Square Preservation aimed at keeping the sign local, according to Preservation Chicago. The new proposal's plan to restore that same sign gives the preservation fight a resolution years later.
The building also picked up an unexpected bit of pop-culture notoriety while sitting vacant. In June 2024, it appeared in Apple TV+'s sci-fi series “Dark Matter” as an operating hotel in an alternate-reality version of Chicago, according to The Cinemaholic, which noted the show filmed on location in Logan Square.
No Parking, Thanks to Transit Rules
The redevelopment's zero-parking design is possible under Chicago's 2022 Connected Communities Ordinance, which allows transit-oriented residential projects near CTA stations to skip off-street parking minimums in order to encourage housing density and lower construction costs, as previously detailed by Hoodline. The Milshire sits along a high-frequency transit corridor near the Logan Square Blue Line station, and its location near the former Megamall redevelopment site places it within a stretch of Milwaukee Avenue that has already seen heavy commercial re-tenanting and transit-oriented apartment construction.
Before the project can move forward, it needs approvals from Alderman Daniel La Spata, the Committee on Zoning, and the Chicago City Council. La Spata has scheduled a First Look community zoning meeting for September 1, allowing neighborhood residents to review the conceptual plans and weigh in before formal aldermanic review begins. How La Spata and neighbors ultimately assess the project's unit mix and affordability at that session remains an open question ahead of the meeting.
