Chicago developers see a future at the old Union Stockyards
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A new warehouse at the stockyards next to an old, but still functioning, warehouse. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
The Union Stockyards once made Chicago "hog butcher for the world." More than 50 years after they closed, developers are modernizing the area.
Why it matters: While other industrial parts of the city, like Fulton Market and the West Loop, have boomed with development in recent decades, the Stockyards have remained basically stagnant. Chicago developers The Missner Group are hoping to change that by banking on the area's proximity to the Loop, Dan Ryan expressway and labor force.
Catch up quick: In the late 19th century, Philip Armour made meat processing cheaper and faster by centralizing the killing and distribution in the stockyards.
- The square mile of pens and slaughterhouses attracted thousands of immigrants desperate for work and industrialists looking for cheap labor.
- It was a dirty, smelly and difficult job that took advantage of workers, which Upton Sinclair revealed in the 1905 classic "The Jungle."
- By 1971, the stockyards had closed.
Zoom in: Chicago is no longer a one-industry town, The Missner Group CEO Barry Missner tells Axios, making the Stockyards attractive to many types of businesses. "When people ask me, 'What's the Chicago user base for industrial?' I say everything, because it's not really concentrated in any one area," he tells Axios.
- TMG built a new warehouse and office at 4002 S. Princeton as an adaptable space with such universal features as 32-foot-high ceilings, warehouse docks and generic office layout.
- Missner says the building could hold one to four tenants, but a TMG spokesperson tells Axios the company doesn't have any planned tenants it can disclose at this time.
State of play: Developing on land once ravaged by cattle involves more than just tearing down a building.
- Missner says the developers spent about $5 million to $6 million to remediate the contaminated land where the new building sits, and businesses that still operate in the stockyards are doing so from buildings that any future tenant will likely need to tear down.
The new warehouse on Princeton Avenue butts up against an old, but still functional, warehouse, demonstrating a striking dichotomy — graffiti-streaked brown brick next to a shiny white warehouse with fresh parking spaces and electric charging stations.
Zoom out: The absorption rate — space occupied versus vacated — is still negative for the area, according to CoStar associate director of market analytics Adrian Brizuela, but it's improving.
- About 400,000 square feet of space was absorbed this year, compared with about 1.5 million square feet at this time last year.
Plus, land is hard to come by in an urban area like Chicago. If a developer has already remediated the land and completed the permitting process, a brand-new warehouse space is definitely a draw for businesses, Brizuela adds.
The bottom line: The stockyards have enough going for them to make them an industrial center again, but don't expect it to be centered on a single industry.