Changes reported for Lin’s Garden site project; more parking added
by BRIAN NADIG
A revised site plan for a proposed five-story apartment building at 6556 N. Milwaukee Ave. shows that retail space has been removed to allow for additional parking in the ground-floor garage.
The 41st Ward Zoning Advisory Board is scheduled to discuss the proposal at its meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, at the Olympia Park fieldhouse, 6566 N. Avondale Ave.
The building would include 20 apartments with balconies on the upper four floors and a lobby, storage space and a management office on the ground floor. The site includes a monument company and the former Lin’s Garden restaurant.
At the board’s Oct. 7 meeting, several members recommended that all or some of the planned 3,900 square feet of retail space on the first floor be removed to allow for more parking. They said that commercial space may be difficult to lease since there were no plans to provide parking for the commercial tenants and that a similar mixed-use building in Edgebrook had to be rezoned to allow for its storefronts, most of which had been vacant for years, to be converted to residential units.
The number of parking spaces in the proposed garage has been increased from 20 to 30, and entry to the garage would be from driveways on both Albion Avenue and Milwaukee Avenue, while vehicles would exit the garage via a rear alley. Three existing parking spaces on Albion would have to be removed to allow for a new curb cut on that street.
Initial plans had called for all vehicles to enter and exit the garage through the alley, which runs one-way north and which can be accessed from Imlay Street to the south. However, several residents have expressed concern that the project would add to the congestion in the alley and on area side streets.
The agenda also may include a proposed mixed-use development on the site of an existing office building and a recently demolished wing of the Marriott O’Hare Hotel at 8535 W. Higgins Ave., according to an aide for Alderman Anthony Napolitano (41st). A zoning application recently was filed for the project, which calls for apartments, offices and retail space.
