Council rezones Roseland blocks around the future 111th Street Red Line station
Four ordinances from Ald. Ronnie Mosley swap car-oriented zoning for housing and shops, and the Council cleared the Morgan Park Commons land sale.
The blocks around the future 111th Street station on the Red Line Extension have new zoning meant to bring housing and storefronts instead of auto shops and gas stations. The Chicago City Council approved four map amendments for the Roseland area on Sept. 23, voting 50 to 0 as part of a group of zoning changes.
All four were filed by Ald. Ronnie L. Mosley (21st Ward). Three weeks later, on Oct. 14, the Council voted 49 to 0 to approve a revised land sale for Morgan Park Commons, an affordable housing project at 115th and Halsted streets in the same ward. Ald. Monique L. Scott (24th Ward) did not vote.
The Red Line Extension will run 5.6 miles from 95th Street to 130th Street with four new accessible stations, Jasmine Gunn, a Department of Planning and Development planner for the Far South region, told the zoning committee on Sept. 22. Construction is expected to finish in 2030.
The rezoning is meant to shape what gets built near the 111th Street stop before the trains arrive. Gunn said much of the old zoning allowed car-oriented businesses that would undermine the transit investment.
"So after being promised for almost 60 years, the project reached a major milestone."
What changes on my block?
Along 111th Street, two ordinances move the commercial frontage to B2-3, a neighborhood mixed-use district. O2026-0026313 covers 355 to 725 W. 111th St., 360 to 420 W. 111th St. and 11031 S. Eggleston Ave. It replaces a mix of residential, shopping and commercial districts.
O2026-0026306 changes 318 to 344 W. 111th St. from a C1-1 commercial district to B2-3.
Behind the corridor, two ordinances move residential blocks to RT-4, a district for two-flats, townhouses and multi-unit buildings. O2026-0026310 covers the blocks between Normal and Stewart avenues from the alley south of 111th Street to 112th Street, which had been zoned for single-family houses.
O2026-0026308 covers blocks west of Princeton Avenue from 108th Place to 112th Place, including 300 to 346 W. 109th St. and 301 to 345 W. 110th Pl. It replaces single-family and limited manufacturing districts.
Gunn said the new zoning still allows a variety of housing and businesses but discourages auto-oriented uses. The plan puts taller, mixed-use buildings along 111th Street, stepping down in scale deeper into the neighborhood.
The rezoning does not build anything. Gunn said a 2023 plan by the CTA and the Department of Planning, adopted by the Plan Commission, mapped vacant buildings that could be rehabbed and vacant land that could hold new buildings around the station.
What supporters and opponents said
No one spoke against the rezoning at the committee or on the Council floor. The committee approved all four ordinances together on a voice vote after Gunn's presentation.
Gunn said one more reason for the timing was a request for proposals the department released this summer for a City-owned site directly next to the station. Proposals were due Sept. 30. The record does not say how many were received.
The 2023 plan also marked a catalyst site near the station, Gunn said, a place where investment could spur more investment in the surrounding area.
"This is exactly what we want to start doing to prep sites to prepare for that groundbreaking, catalystic development and would ask for this committee's favorable support."
What about Morgan Park Commons?
Morgan Park Commons is a planned redevelopment of a 13-acre site between 114th and 115th streets, bounded by Halsted Street and the Major Taylor Trail, according to O2026-0029008. Half of it is a City lot holding a vacant former Jewel Foods store of 67,797 square feet, which Albertsons donated to the City. The developer owns the other half, about 6.5 acres of vacant land.
The ordinance sells that lot, valued at $695,805, to Far South CDC for $1 per parcel. A $15 million State of Illinois capital grant pays for the first phase: demolition, cleanup, grading, utilities, park landscaping, stormwater work and new sections of 114th Street and 114th Place.
The next phase would be two mixed-income buildings on Halsted with 70 apartments, 66 of them affordable, and 81 parking spaces, the ordinance says. Later phases are not yet set.
The Council first approved the sale July 15. The Oct. 14 vote repealed and replaced it.
A planner told the Committee on Housing and Real Estate on Oct. 8 that the Law Department recommended removing language about the federal environmental review, which could have been read as committing to the sale before that review ends and put federal funding at risk.
The project is still going through that review, the planner said, and the City cannot hand over the land until it is complete. The planner said the state grant was expected to expire early next year, which is why the developer wants to move forward.
What happens next?
The new zoning took effect after passage and publication. Any developer who wants something other than what B2-3 or RT-4 allows would need another zoning change, which goes back through the zoning committee.
The station is scheduled to open with the rest of the extension in 2030. The department's choice for the City-owned site next to it has not been announced in the record.
At Morgan Park Commons, the land transfer waits on the federal environmental review, and the housing phase still needs its own agreement and Council vote, according to the planner. Residents can follow both through the 21st Ward office.
"So construction is expected to be completed in 2030."