West Grand Avenue Was Called a 'Business Desert.' So Why Are Five-Story Buildings Lining Up There?

"It's become a kind of business desert because nobody is opening a business in front of those curbs," Doug Van Truss, owner of the antiques store Golden Triangle, told ABC7 in May 2026. He was describing Grand Avenue west of Damen, where protected bike lanes and concrete islands are already in. Six weeks later, on June 17, the City Council rezoned two long-vacant lots on that same stretch for five-story buildings.

Count those two with the other projects on file and you get roughly 148 new homes on four sites along West Town's Grand Avenue corridor. Each building has a modest storefront at street level. The developers are underwriting households first, and the parking numbers they asked the city for show they disagree about which households. For anyone weighing a condo or rental near Grand, that disagreement is the most useful signal on the street.

Four sites, one architect, about 148 homes

Hanna Architects designed every project below. Three of the four sit west of Damen. The fourth, at 1735–47, sits between Ashland and Damen.

The 2119 row covers a site that local coverage has reported three times, so the count can easily come out too high. Block Club reported Dan Popovych's 48-unit plan for 2119-29 W. Grand in October 2025. Chicago YIMBY reported a 48-unit Panoptic Group project at 2121 W. Grand, approved by the Council that November, on the same mid-block lot between Leavitt and Hoyne. In July 2026 YIMBY ran "plans revealed" for 2119 and reported that a new zoning application still needs city approval. The 2025 zoning filing lists the 2119–29 address range with 2121 W Grand LLC as applicant. One building, three headlines. The retail space shrank from 5,900 to 5,400 square feet between filings, and that change is the clearest sign of a revised plan.

On both June rezonings, the zoning moved from C3-2 to B2-5. The pattern is the same each time. A lot that sat empty under commercial zoning gets rezoned so housing can go on top of a small retail floor.

The parking counts are where the developers split

Every one of these filings calls its site a Transit Served Location. Under that designation, developers can ask the city to adjust how much off-street parking they build. What they asked for varies widely.

• 2323 W. Grand asked to cut parking from 52 required spaces to 26, half a space per home.
• 2315 W. Grand, next door, asked to raise parking from eight spaces to 16, one per home.
• 2119 W. Grand asked to go from 50 percent to about 70 percent.

Panoptic Group is behind both 2315 and 2323, which sit side by side between Oakley and Western, and it chose opposite ratios for them. The building full of three- and four-bedroom homes, with private roof decks on the top floor, gets a garage space for every home. The building with 48 two-bedrooms gets one space for every two. The developer appears to expect the larger households to own cars and the two-bedroom households to share or skip them.

For a buyer, that changes the basic math of the block. A two-flat or condo with a garage spot within a few blocks of 2323 sits next to 26 new residential spaces for 52 homes. On a corridor where curbside parking has already been reduced, an existing deeded spot nearby carries more weight than it would on a block full of new garages.

The storefronts were sized for a street without curb parking

Across the four buildings, the planned retail adds up to about 12,450 square feet. That is small next to the residential floors above it. Two design choices stand out. At 2323 the 2,700 square feet of retail is divisible, so it can be leased to small tenants. The approved 2121 plan set aside nine parking spaces for commercial tenants, reached from the alley.

Those choices match the concern Van Truss raised. If the curb in front of a storefront no longer serves drivers, a developer who wants the space leased either moves customer and tenant parking to the alley or keeps the bays small enough for a neighborhood-scale tenant. Both approaches appear in these plans. The ground floors are built to fill on the street as it now exists.

The Save Grand Ave. Committee, led by Roger Romanelli, pushed to replace the protected lanes with shared bus-and-bike lanes. CDOT defended its design. The development filings went forward during that debate. Builders were committing to these lots while the future of the street was still contested in public.

The street is still mid-rebuild

As of ABC7's May 7, 2026 report, the stretch from Chicago Avenue to Damen was finished, construction from Ogden to Damen was about to start, the Damen-to-Ashland segment was slated for this year, and Ashland to Ogden for 2027. First Ward Ald. Daniel La Spata said there was no turning back and called slower traffic "a feature, not a bug." Streetsblog reported in April that Ald. Walter "Red" Burnett III dropped an idea to cancel the contracted work in his ward. CDOT and the alderman also pointed to fewer severe crashes and safer speeds on the finished sections.

CDOT's project page carries no date, and it describes the Damen–Ogden work as both upcoming and underway. So the May schedule is the most specific public timeline available. Anyone buying east of Damen should assume street work could reach their frontage within the next year or so.

How this changes a purchase near Grand

West Town has no public monthly sales breakdown. The Chicago Association of REALTORS keeps its community-area FastStats behind a member login. The citywide picture still shows why a 148-home pipeline matters. In August 2026, Chicago had 3,677 homes in inventory, down 21.5% from a year earlier, and 2.0 months of supply, according to the Chicago Association of REALTORS. In the Illinois REALTORS August 2026 City of Chicago report, the city's condo median was $420,000 across 1,208 sales and the single-family median was $369,950 across 699 sales.

Supply is tight citywide, and the attached segment is where the volume is. Most of what is coming to Grand is small-format. Of the 148 homes in the table, at least 80 are two-bedrooms, 48 more at 2119 are a mix of one- and two-bedrooms, four are one-bedrooms at 2323, and just 16 are three- or four-bedrooms. A seller with a two-bedroom condo near Grand may eventually be pricing against new construction a few blocks away. A buyer looking for three bedrooms will find almost none in this pipeline outside 2315.

The rent side gives investors a reference point. Yardi Matrix data covering West Town buildings with 50 or more units put the average one-bedroom at $2,803 for 617 square feet as of Sept. 30, 2026. The earlier approved 2121 plan listed units from 590 to 1,075 square feet, so the smallest were right at that benchmark size. Block Club described the 2119 proposal as apartments. The published coverage of the other buildings does not say whether they will rent or sell.

Before writing an offer within a few blocks of Grand between Ashland and Western, run these checks:

1. Search the City Clerk's legislative records for zoning changes on your block and the next one. The June rezonings at 2315 and 2323 both started from C3-2, and the filings show unit counts and parking well before any construction fence goes up.
2. Look up the building permit status of any approved project nearby. A project at the inspections stage, like 1735–47, is much closer to delivering units than one with zoning approval and no timeline.
3. Ask which Grand Avenue construction segment covers your frontage and whether it has started. The May schedule covers work through 2027.
4. Check whether a garage spot is deeded or leased, and how many off-street spaces the nearest new building will add.

Quick FAQ

Are these buildings rentals or condos? Coverage describes the 1735–47 and 2119 units as apartments. The published coverage of 2315 and 2323 does not say.

When will they be built? The permit for 1735–47 shows inspections as its latest milestone. 2315 and 2323 have zoning approval and no announced construction timeline. The revised 2119 plan was still awaiting city approval as of July 2026.

Could the bike lane project be reversed? As of the spring 2026 reporting, Ald. La Spata said no, and Ald. Burnett dropped his idea of canceling the work in his ward.

If you're deciding between a condo near Grand and one a few blocks away, the zoning filings and parking counts matter as much as the listing sheet. Luke Sandler and the Sergio & Banks team at @properties Christie's International Real Estate track these projects lot by lot and can pull the records for any address you're considering before you make an offer. Receive Exclusive Listings and get the West Grand pipeline mapped against your search.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.