A Red Line train at the Lawrence station in Uptown. Photo: Steven Vance from Chicago, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The parking lot that runs along the Red Line tracks from the new building at 4725 N. Clifton Ave. up to Lawrence Avenue is next in line for apartments. Cedar Street, the developer already building at 4725, has filed plans with the city for a second building at 4735 N. Clifton, Uptown Update reported Monday.
According to the filings described by the neighborhood blog, phase two would be a five-story building with 99 apartments, two ground-floor retail spaces, indoor parking and a rooftop amenity deck with a dog run. That is more than twice the size of the 40-unit building going up next door. No renderings have been released.
The project is being filed under the lot’s existing zoning, an informed source told Uptown Update, so it shouldn’t need a zoning change from the City Council or a sign-off from 46th Ward Ald. Angela Clay.
Phase one is already under way
City building permit records show the application for 4725 N. Clifton started in June 2025, and a foundation and superstructure permit was issued on April 24 for a five-story, 40-unit residential building with amenities and retail space. The owner on the permit is Uptown Square Clifton Propco LLC. The architect of record is Howard M. Hirsch, and Method Construction Services is the general contractor.
Site work started in late May, and the city issued the permit to finish the upper four floors on Aug. 19, Chicago YIMBY reported. That building has no parking of its own. Uptown Update says Hirsch’s firm, Hirsch MPG, is also designing the second phase.
For Uptown, this is mostly about land that has done nothing for a long time. No building has stood on the lot since the early 1980s, according to Uptown Update, which ran a 1978 photo showing a structure along the tracks toward Broadway. The Lawrence Red Line stop is at the end of the block, and the Aragon Ballroom and the Riviera Theatre are a short walk east, so the planned storefronts on Lawrence would sit on the path concertgoers already walk.
It is one of several residential projects moving forward in Uptown this fall. An eight-unit condo building at 4447 N. Ashland Ave. received its permit on Oct. 30 with a reported cost of $2.8 million, and a foundation permit came through in October for a five-story building at 4920-4924 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago YIMBY reported.
No construction timeline has been made public, and city records showed no permit yet for 4735 N. Clifton as of Tuesday.
Marcus Hadley covers business, transit and real estate in Uptown.
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