Another Near West Side Parking Lot Is Becoming Housing: 50 Apartments Permitted at Fillmore and Laflin

NEAR WEST SIDE— Another surface parking lot on Chicago’s Near West Side is cleared to become housing.

A full new-construction permit was issued September 18, 2026 for 1455 W. Fillmore Street, at the southeast corner of Fillmore and Laflin streets. Developer 4Corners LLC can now move forward with a five-story building containing 50 apartments, 25 enclosed parking spaces and 50 bicycle spaces. The city permit describes a five-story, 50-unit residential building with an enclosed garage, while the project received its required zoning approval from City Council last fall.

The project is not a high-rise and it will not dramatically remake the Chicago skyline. Its importance is more local: another parking lot is being converted into permanent housing in an area positioned between Little Italy, UIC, the Illinois Medical District and the broader Near West Side.

50 Apartments, Including 10 Affordable Units

Designed by Kennedy Mann, the approximately 60-foot building will contain an even mix of 25 one-bedroom and 25 two-bedroom apartments. Plans call for 10 of the 50 apartments to be affordable units, satisfying the development's Affordable Requirements Ordinance obligation.

The ground floor is planned with a residential entrance along Fillmore Street, a fitness center at the corner and three apartments facing Fillmore and Laflin. The remaining 47 units will occupy the upper floors.

Private outdoor space is another notable part of the design. Current plans show balconies or terraces for every apartment, with setbacks along the fifth floor and around portions of the building intended to break up its mass. The exterior will primarily use different shades of brick rather than the glass-heavy design associated with many larger Downtown developments.

There is no ground-floor retail planned, so this will remain primarily a residential addition rather than a mixed-use development.

The Parking Ratio Tells Part of the Story

The building will contain 25 vehicle spaces for 50 apartments, essentially one parking space for every two units, while providing one bicycle space per apartment.

Cars will enter the enclosed garage from Laflin Street, while residents will have separate access to the bicycle room. The site also qualifies under Chicago's transit-oriented development framework, with the Polk Pink Line station roughly a half-mile away and several CTA bus routes operating along nearby Ashland Avenue, Taylor Street and Roosevelt Road.

That balance is worth watching as more housing is added around the Near West Side. Developments in neighborhoods close to major employment centers, universities and transit do not necessarily need to devote as much land to parking as projects in more car-dependent locations.

It is also a significant change in how this particular parcel will function. Instead of land being used primarily to store vehicles, the site will accommodate 50 households while still retaining structured parking inside the building.

This Is Not 4Corners' First Fillmore Street Project

The development is particularly interesting because 4Corners has already built another similarly sized project nearby.

At 1440 W. Fillmore Street, the developer previously constructed another five-story, 50-unit building with a 25-car garage, also replacing surface parking. That project's new-construction permit was issued in 2024.

Put together, the two projects represent 100 apartments along the same stretch of Fillmore Street.

That is a better way to understand the significance of 1455 W. Fillmore. A single 50-unit building may appear modest compared with the major towers rising elsewhere in Chicago, but repeated mid-rise infill can gradually change a neighborhood's density, pedestrian activity and housing supply without introducing a dramatically different building scale.

The location also has strong institutional anchors nearby, including UIC and the Illinois Medical District, which can create consistent demand from people who want to live relatively close to school, medical facilities and employment.

The Permit Means the Project Has Moved Beyond the Proposal Stage

Plans for the site were first presented in 2025, when the property required a zoning change covering 1447-1457 W. Fillmore Street. Chicago City Council formally approved that zoning change on October 16, 2025.

The developer then applied for the new-construction permit on February 25, 2026, and the permit was issued September 18. That distinction matters: this is no longer simply a proposed apartment building awaiting zoning approval. The full building permit is now issued, allowing construction to proceed.

Earlier planning materials estimated the overall development at approximately $18.5 million. The city's current permit dataset, however, lists a $500,000 reported permit valuation, so those two figures should not be treated as directly comparable measures of total project cost.

Earlier plans anticipated roughly an 18-month construction period once work began, although a current completion date has not been publicly confirmed.

Buying or Selling on Chicago’s Near West Side?

Development can change quickly around University Village, University Commons, Little Italy and the surrounding Near West Side, making neighborhood-level and even block-level knowledge increasingly important.

The Cory Tanzer Group at Option Premier helps buyers and sellers evaluate not only current pricing and recent comparable sales, but also the new construction and development activity that could affect a property over time.

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