16,024 Proposed Condos in Downtown Pipeline

According to the Chicago Tribune, Appraisal Research Counselors, the firm that monitors condo developments in the heart of downtown Chicago (Cermak to North Avenue), has identified 16,024 condo units in the downtown development pipeline, including proposed units on the drawing board. By neighborhood, they are:

South Loop: 8,479 units
West Loop: 2,944
Near North: 1,096
Loop/Lakeshore East: 1,080
Streeterville: 1,000
River North: 885
Gold Coast: 540

Condo/townhouse for-sale inventory in the entire city of Chicago is 15,000 units--about an eight-month supply. ARC's Gail Lissner said that condo units in the downtown area numbered fewer than 50,000 in 1990, and number 98,000 today. By 2010, she predicts there will be 110,000.

How soon will the downtown market recover? Lissner looks at 2010. “We’ll see a record number of units completing construction in 2008 and 2009, and very little that will be completed in 2010, so we’ll be using up this excess inventory," she predicted.