The one-story retail building at 2501 N. Clark St. in Lincoln Park is about to disappear for good. Chicago has issued a demolition permit for the site at the corner of N. Clark St. and W. St. James Pl., clearing the way for Precision Excavation to tear down the existing structure and prepare the lot for a six-story, 20-unit residential building.
The project, planned by developer Quest Realty Group, has been in the works since early 2025, according to Urbanize Chicago. The site was previously home to a single-story Chase Bank branch on a 6,550-square-foot lot, purchased for $2,499,900 in August 2024 prior to any redevelopment filings, per Zillow. Hanna Architects, the firm behind the new design, was established in 1988 and has designed dozens of multi-family and infill developments across Chicago neighborhoods including Lincoln Park, Roscoe Village, Pilsen, and Wicker Park.
From Wedding Venue to All-Residential
The project looked very different when Quest Realty Group first pitched it. The developer's original January 2025 plans called for a five-story building with just eight two-bedroom apartments and a two-story rooftop event venue to be operated by Loft Lucia, but that event space was scrapped by mid-2025. Neighbors had voiced traffic, parking, and noise concerns about the proposed wedding venue during a January 2025 community meeting organized by 43rd Ward Alderman Timmy Knudsen and the Park West Neighborhood Association, according to the same Urbanize Chicago reporting.
The redesign that followed dropped the commercial event space entirely and expanded the residential count from eight units to 20, paired with ground-floor retail. That shift required its own round of municipal sign-off: the Chicago City Council voted in July 2025 to rezone the corner site from B1-2 Neighborhood Shopping District to B3-5 Community Shopping District with a Type 1 designation, per the outlet's reporting. Because the parcel sits close to the lake, the project also needed the Chicago Plan Commission's approval of its Lake Michigan and Chicago Lakefront Protection Ordinance application, granted in October 2025, confirming the design complies with policies governing the district's Private Use Zone.
Affordable Units and a Building With No Parking
Under Alderman Knudsen's ward development guidelines, market-rate projects seeking zoning relief must set aside at least 20% of units as on-site affordable housing. That requirement is reflected in the finished plan: four of the 20 apartments are designated as affordable units meeting Affordable Requirements Ordinance standards, the same Plan Commission materials show.
The building itself will rise six stories, with 3,775 square feet of ground-floor retail occupying almost the entire ground floor and a residential entryway fronting N. Clark St. The 20 apartments are distributed across the five upper floors at four units per floor, split between 10 three-bedroom layouts and 10 two-bedroom layouts. Every residential unit includes a private balcony as well as access to a shared rooftop deck.
Mechanical spaces will sit at the back of the building, and trash and bike racks will be accessed from W. St. James Pl., located outside along the rear of the property. Notably, the building includes zero off-street parking spaces, instead providing bike racks — a design choice that takes advantage of Chicago's Transit-Oriented Development rules given the site's position along high-frequency transit lines including the CTA #22 Clark bus route, according to Plan Commission documents.
An Upscale Corridor Drives Demand
The zero-parking, transit-oriented approach lines up with who lives nearby. Data from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning presented to the Plan Commission in October 2025 shows Lincoln Park has a median household income of $137,505 — nearly double Chicago's citywide median of $75,134 — with 85.7% of adult residents holding a bachelor's degree or higher. That demographic profile helps explain the market appetite for the building's larger, multi-bedroom rental layouts.
Commercial real estate listings and planning documents indicate full construction will follow demolition sometime in 2026, with an expected project delivery in Fall 2027. It's still unclear which retail tenant will eventually occupy the 3,775-square-foot ground-floor space, and how nearby street parking will absorb visitor traffic given the building's zero-parking design — questions that remain open even with all legislative, lakefront, and zoning approvals now secured.
The project fits within broader redevelopment in Lincoln Park. Hoodline previously reported on a Willow Street teardown in the same ward, while Hanna Architects has designed multi-family and infill developments across Chicago neighborhoods.
