A Spanish housing developer has introduced the latest plan for redeveloping the long-vacant site of U.S. Steel's South Works mill in Chicago, which closed in 1992.
Barcelona Housing Systems unveiled its "Chicago 8080 Lakeshore Masterplan" for the 430-acre site on the mouth of the Calumet River and Lake Michigan, which McCaffrey Interests LLC had previously planned to turn into a $4 billion city-within-a-city. That project flamed out last year.
Crain's Chicago Business reported Barcelona Housing Systems and WELink are buying the property, and planning a massive development that "likely will cost billions of dollars and take years, if not decades, to complete."
The new developer is looking at 12,000 homes spread over 30 city blocks along the lakeshore. The massive project would be divided into four phases with around 3,000 homes constructed in each phase.
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To put it in perspective, the site of the former steel mill, which was once the largest in the world, would have more houses than the city of Hobart if the plan comes to fruition.
Barcelona Housing Systems said on its website its redevelopment plan "will allow residents to enjoy this new 21st Century urban planning concept, with extensive green spaces, sustainable internal mobility, high use of renewable energies, common social areas, digital urban and community processes, urban vegetable gardens, etc."
Not many further details were available, and the company did not return messages.
U.S. Steel spokeswoman Erin DePietro declined to comment. U.S. Steel had been trying to sell off the land where it operated a steel mill for more than 90 years.
Last spring, McCaffrey Interests backed out of the previous redevelopment project, which started in 2004 but never resulted in anything more than a "coming soon" sign for a Mariano's grocery store.