Scott Goodman has his latest deal in Chicago.
The founder of Sterling Bay, who left the well-known locally based developer behind Lincoln Yards to establish Farpoint in 2016, will build a new control and training center for the Chicago Transit Authority, Crain’s reported.
The CTA board approved an agreement for a Farpoint venture to develop a $158 million, 150,000-square-foot complex on CTA-owned land in Garfield Park. The deal also means Farpoint will buy a three-story Fulton Market office building at 120 North Racine Avenue, where CTA’s current control center sits on the top floor.
Farpoint will begin work on the new facility, which will consolidate CTA’s control center and employee training center, in 2024 with plans to finish it in 2026. The new space will rise on the northeast corner of Lake Street and Pulaski Avenue.
While an important development for the city, it’s a much smaller one than Farpoint’s most prominent ongoing project. The firm is leading the several groups behind the $4 billion Bronzeville Lakefront megadevelopment that will revive the former Michael Reese hospital site on the shore of Lake Michigan on the South Side, starting with a life sciences campus, with housing and other commercial space set to be added in later phases.
The amount Farpoint paid the city for the Fulton Market space wasn’t disclosed, though CTA will put funds from the sale toward developing the new space. The rest of the money for the project will come from the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Rebuild Illinois infrastructure funding program and some of the CTA’s own funds.
CTA said its current control center doesn’t meet “current security and threat standards and is in need of costly infrastructure repair and capital investment.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the new project will complement the ongoing Invest South/West program. “The latest local government facility to be constructed in the area…will help attract future economic development and job opportunities for this community,” Lightfoot said in the statement.
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