Logan Square Faces Critical Transit and Zoning Decisions This Summer

Three separate planning processes converge on Logan Square this month, and the outcomes will touch nearly every block between Kedzie Avenue and the 606 trail. Aldermanic staff confirmed this week that a zoning amendment for the former Mega Mall site at 3205 W. Armitage Ave. is scheduled for a full Chicago City Council vote no later than August 14. At the same time, the Chicago Transit Authority is finalizing its Blue Line Modernization environmental review, with a public comment window closing July 18. Then there is the question of whether the city's Affordable Requirements Ordinance will apply to two new mixed-use proposals that developers quietly filed with the Department of Planning and Development in late June.

The timing matters because Logan Square has lost ground fast. Between 2015 and 2024, the neighborhood shed roughly 4,200 Latino residents, according to figures compiled by the Metropolitan Planning Council, a decline driven almost entirely by rising rents and displacement along the Milwaukee Avenue and Armitage corridors. A one-bedroom apartment that rented for $1,050 on Spaulding Avenue in 2018 now lists at $1,740 on average, according to Zillow rental data pulled last week. Every project approved or denied this summer lands on top of that baseline.

The Sites Everyone Is Watching

The Mega Mall property has been vacant since the retail complex closed in 2022. The current proposal calls for 187 units, roughly 14 percent of which would be designated affordable at 60 percent of the area median income, a share that housing advocates at Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation say falls short. Bickerdike, headquartered on W. Diversey Parkway, has been organizing residents in the Hermosa and Logan Square wards for three decades and is pushing for a 20 percent affordability floor on any project over 100 units that receives a zoning lift. The aldermanic office for the 35th Ward has not publicly committed to either threshold.

Two blocks north, the Logan Square Preservation group has flagged a second proposal at the intersection of Kedzie Boulevard and Fullerton Avenue, a six-story mixed-use building that would replace a surface parking lot adjacent to the Logan Square landmark district. The group argues the design does not meet the city's Lakefront and Adjacent Neighborhoods design guidelines. The Department of Planning and Development must issue a determination before any permit can move forward, and that ruling is expected sometime in the next 30 days.

The Blue Line question is separate but intertwined. The CTA's preferred alternative for the Logan Square station area includes a partial reconstruction of the elevated structure and a reconfiguration of the Kedzie-Kimball plaza. Capital cost estimates released in May 2026 put that station segment alone at $340 million, drawn from a mix of federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds and city TIF districts. Residents who want to weigh in have until 5 p.m. on July 18 to submit written comments at transitchicago.com or in person at the Logan Square branch of the Chicago Public Library, 3255 W. Altgeld St.

What Comes Next

The sequencing matters. The City Council zoning vote on the Armitage site will likely come before the CTA finalizes its station design, which means the density and affordability calculus for that block gets locked in without a complete picture of transit access. Planners at the Metropolitan Planning Council have noted publicly that this kind of sequencing mismatch has historically produced car-dependent development even in neighborhoods with strong transit bones.

Community organizations including the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, which has run tenant outreach programs along Milwaukee Avenue since 1962, are hosting a joint information session on July 10 at Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave., starting at 6:30 p.m. Organizers say they will walk attendees through all three processes side by side, the zoning votes, the transit review, and the ARO calculations, so residents understand how the decisions connect before any of them are made final.

August 14 is the hard deadline for the Armitage vote. Everything before that date is still movable.