"I don't know how applicable the building could be to other users," says Paul Yaffee of Preferred Realty Group, based in suburban Lincolnwood. "My guess is it would have to be demolished, but some parts would have to be retained," possibly for smaller industrial users.

Brach's decision to abandon the factory on a 28.4-acre site at 401 N. Cicero Ave. was made after $76 million in upgrades were not enough to keep the plant, first built in 1930 with additions tacked on through 1986, going. Disappointed city officials, who say the Tennessee-based company assured them it was staying, suggest the move is being made to take advantage of cheaper labor overseas. Regardless, Brach's will exit the site, located about a mile north of the Eisenhower Expressway and two blocks from a new CTA El station, by 2004.

They could leave a potential canvas for an ambitious developer willing to gamble on a struggling Austin neighborhood, where median family income is about $43,000. "Twenty-eight acres, that's enough acreage to really make a statement," says Steve Cotsirilos, with the North Side brokerage firm Lichter Realty, Inc. "But who's going to stick their neck out, who's going to have enough confidence and get enough assurances to make them rich?" The key, Cotsirilos says, will be getting the property cheap. Its current market value is about $9 million, according Cook County tax records, giving Brach's an annual property tax bill of $573,487.

Richard Levy, a partner with Podolsky Northstar Realty Partners LLC, sees a potential residential component filling a housing need exacerbated by the Chicago Housing Authority's continuing demolition of public housing developments throughout the South and West Sides.

Levy points to townhouses built three miles east as replacement housing for the CHA's Henry Horner Homes as an example of what could be done at the Brach's site, but suggests the units could be owner-occupied rather than subsidized. "This might be a wonderful location as they continue to tear down (public housing), to create a low-rise townhome mixed development with commercial on Cicero Avenue and develop a wonderful community there," Levy said. "I don't see a Wal-Mart, but you might a Jewel or Dominick's (food store). I think you'd be doing a great things and help uplift a whole neighborhood."

However, 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith doubts the site will see any use other than industrial even if jobs weren't the city's top priority. "I don't think it will go retail, not in that area. And I don't see us building houses on that spot. We want business on that spot. We don't want it to lay fallow, but we want business. There's a symbiotic relationship between business and the local community."Smith agrees a single user filling Brach's void is not likely to surface, but he envisions smaller multiple users. An example is three miles southwest at Sungate Properties' 47.5-acre SunGate Park at 5400 W. Roosevelt Rd., where 46 tenants have replaced Sunbeam after the manufacturer abandoned its plant.

"We're looking for some kind of service industry, some kind of manufacturing. We need to find jobs to come this area where the people here can do," Smith said. By "we" he means a Daley administration highly protective of the city's jobs. The city's aggressive efforts to retain local businesses included giving Brach's more than $300,000 five years ago to fix the plant's heating system.

The site also is in an empowerment zone qualifying the owner for incentives that may still be around when Brach's leaves. But demographics also could change through the Daley administration's reversing the long-running exodus of residents to the suburbs. Residential real estate agents continue to see suburbanites moving back to the city, hopping on the availability of public transportation to get to their Downtown jobs. That could make the Brach site, six blocks from the Loop, look attractive.

"I think there's an unmet demand for retail and for housing," Yaffee believes. "It could accommodate a number of uses." Like Smith, Cotsirilos questions retail use, pointing to a site 1.5 miles away at Cicero and North Avenues that has been extremely slow to develop. And Yaffee adds the Brach's location may not suit higher-end townhouse and condominium redevelopment that has been seen throughout the city.

"It's so convenient to Downtown," Yaffee said. "There's a lot of potential. Who knows? From this, maybe there's a lot we can do with it."

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