With our recent integration of 2021 Q4 data, Chicago Cityscape now has information about property sales in Cook County from 2016 to 2021. That's 725,542 transactions over six years!

In Chicago, there were 75,492 transactions recorded in 2021, which is a 63.7 percent increase over the 46,122 transactions recorded in 2020. 

What can you do with property sales information on Cityscape? A lot. Here are some tips:

• In Place Snapshot (think ZIP code or a personally-drawn boundary), you can locate sales comps and find the names of the most prolific buyers and sellers. 
• In Address Snapshot, you can find all of the properties that sold within a couple of blocks. 
• In Lending & Investment Snapshot, showcase the transactions in automatically generated charts, for any of the thousands of Places we have in Cook County (see screenshot below). 

Chicago Cityscape added Revitalization Areas across Illinois. The Illinois Housing Development Authority designates these areas for the convenience of affordable housing developers who are applying to the authority for Low Income Housing Tax Credits. 

If a proposed development is in a "revitalization area", IHDA will prioritize that application for the limited amount of LIHTC. According to IHDA, the revitalization areas "demonstrate the most salient market conditions suggesting that revitalization, or concerted community development planning, would be especially beneficial within these communities."

Applicants should load Chicago Cityscape's Incentives Checker in any Address Snapshot lookup in Illinois to see if the location is in an revitalization area. Then the applicant can indicate that status in their application's Community Revitalization Scoring Criteria. 

This brings the number of financial & development incentives up to 32. Review the full list.

In preparation for a redesigned homepage, Chicago Cityscape has moved its longstanding real-time development map to a new dedicated, full-screen page. 

We've also enhanced the map – by showing more developments in more places – and added a legend to explain what each color marker means. 

The real-time Chicago development is updated daily, and sometimes more than once a day, and it shows proposed projects, projects that are significant on a citywide or neighborhood level, new construction projects worth $500,000 or more, and renovation projects worth $100,000 or more.

Access the real-time development map now

The legend below shows the the four development categories and their respective markers.

We strive to have the most complete and updated databases, and the businesses – existing and proposed – in our Cannabis Compliance tools are no exception. 

Today's about is about a new map and updated businesses. Both updates require a Cityscape Real Estate Pro membership.

1. New proposed cannabis businesses map

This new map and downloadable spreadsheet show over 110 proposed cannabis businesses in Chicago and one in suburban Chicago. We source the data about proposed dispensaries, craft growers, infusers, and processors, from news reports and the Chicago zoning department. 

2. Updated business details

This is a routine update. We are constantly changing the business details of existing dispensaries, including their operator names and license numbers. Occasionally we add notes detailing the past and present operators. 

Today we updated 3 dispensaries and added 3 proposed businesses. 

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Did you read this op-ed in Crain's last week and say to yourself that you wanted to invest in reviving the South Lakefront?

We created a custom Place Snapshot that has all of the Metra Electric stations on the South Lakefront, starting with the McCormick Place station. 

This means you can use Property Finder to easily find TOD-eligible developable property. We used the following filters to find 102 properties:

• TOD zoning district (B, C, D)
• Minimum 3,000 s.f. lot size (this means you could build several multi-family units with less car parking, making it easier to build larger units)
• Vacant lot

Change the filters to match your criteria: find Chicago-owned land, Cook County Land Bank Authority properties, or properties that can take advantage of one of the many incentives. It's all a click away.

Chicago City Council adopted new zoning standards for sports betting facilities and Chicago Cityscape has already integrated the rules. The ordinance is O2021-3243.

There are two rules we're showing: Zoning districts that permit the sports betting facilities and the distance to the nearest eligible stadium. 

Look up an Address Snapshot and the report will identify if that location's zoning district allows sports betting. Additionally, in the expanded Zoning Assessment section, click on "Find nearest stadium" and Cityscape will tell you the distance to the nearest eligible stadium. 

Eligible stadiums are Wrigley Field, Guaranteed Rate Field, Wintrust Arena, Soldier Field, and United Center. Sports betting locations must be within "five blocks" of one of these stadiums. Chicago Cityscape doesn't know the definition of "five blocks" so we show the direct line distance in feet. 

If you have a question about how to use this, or you have a suggestion for how it could be more useful to you, contact us. 

Both screenshots below are from an Address Snapshot's Zoning Assessment section for a location near the White Sox stadium.

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