A developer’s attorney says he’s “evaluating what our options are” after aldermen last week rejected plans to build a six-story, 45-unit multi-family building at 1031 Sherman Ave.
Just before the aldermen voted unanimously to reject the project, Alderman Steve Bernstein, whose 4th Ward includes the site, said “I think this is probably the most ill-conceived project I ever seen in 11 years” on the City Council.
He suggested the developer, Michael Dalton, most likely planned to challenge the council’s decision in circuit court.
But the developer’s attorney, Daniel Shapiro, told Evanston Now, “I don’t want to comment on what Alderman Bernstein said” and that no next steps have been decided on yet.
The project also was rejected unanimously last month by the city’s plan Commission.
The parcel, just west of the Metra tracks, is a through lot running from Sherman Avenue to Custer Avenue a few doors south of Greenleaf Street.
It now contains an abandoned house and a derelict small commercial building.
The rest of the block has a mix of mostly frame single-family and two-flat homes and small apartment buildings mixed with a lumber yard and other commercial uses. Nichols Middle School is just across Sherman Avenue to the west.
Reflecting that mixed usage, the lot now is split between the R3 two-family residential zone and the MUE Transitional Manufacturing-Employment district.
The developer proposed rezoning the parcel to C1a, a commercial district used in some places along Chicago Avenue, on the other side of the railroad tracks, an area that has seen much more intensive residential development in recent years
Neighbors of the proposed project have said it would be dramatically out of character with the rest of their neighborhood.
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