Belgravia Group Ltd., which started construction about a month ago on a Chicago row-house development, is charging almost $1 million for each of the 14 Lincoln Park homes as buyer demand surges in the neighborhood.
The three-story properties will have high-end features such as granite countertops, Sub-Zero refrigerators, Wolf ovens and Bosch dishwashers. The first floors of the 3,200-square-foot (300-square-meter) homes in the development, known as Montana Row, will have 10-foot (3-meter) ceilings and red-oak flooring in the kitchens and living and dining rooms.
In the good neighborhoods in the city, theres pent-up demand, Alan Lev, chief executive officer of Chicago-based Belgravia, said in a telephone interview. Its like the stock market and the investment arena — its a flight to quality.
A rebound in residential construction is taking hold in such Chicago areas as West Loop and the upscale Lincoln Park, driven by a supply shortage and slowly improving economy, even as the third-largest U.S. metropolitan area remains plagued by foreclosures and a surge in homicides thats hurting home sales in some neighborhoods.
Developers began construction on 90 units of for-sale housing in Chicago this year through September, and the total for all of 2012 will probably be about 150, said Chris Huecksteadt, a director at housing-research firm Metrostudy in Elgin, Illinois. Thats more non-rental housing starts than in the past two years combined.
It has started to pick up a little bit, he said. Its just going to be a long, slow recovery.
For-sale housing starts in the city of 2.7 million fell last year to 38 units, the lowest in data going back to 2004, according to Huecksteadt. In 2006, construction starts on single-family homes, townhouses and condominium units totaled 11,485, the highest for years tracked by Huecksteadt.
Prices Decline
