Chicago Cityscape never stops upgrading. We’ve heard valuable feedback from our members and Data Equity Cohort participants about data and new solutions that needed to be added to the platform. This is the first regularly occurring quarterly newsletter about new Chicago Cityscape improvements — there’s something for everyone.

We’ll also be demonstrating these features in a live webinar on Thursday, April 14, called “Lunch Break Update with Chicago Cityscape”. RSVP is required in order to get the Zoom link.

1. Share your access to non-members (new)

Members of the Real Estate Pro and Enterprise tiers can share their access, temporarily, with colleagues and clients. ShareLink currently works on Address Snapshot and Place Snapshot only.

Members can copy the link and share it with anyone. Recipients will need to create a free Cityscape account and they’ll have 7 days of access starting when the link was copied by the Cityscape member.

How to use it: Go to any Address or Place Snapshot and look for the “Share a link” section below the names of either snapshot. Copy the link and share!

Read about the other 11 improvements

Chicago Cityscape has revamped how to find landmarks. Previously, you could only find landmarks, landmark districts, and National Register of Historic Places if those overlapped the address or Place you were looking up. 

Now, Address Snapshot and Place Snapshot have dedicated sections for finding overlapping and nearby landmarks, landmark districts, and National Register of Historic Places. The Chicago Historic Resources Survey remains a separate section.

Watch the 90 second video below to learn about the new map and data table that combines all three landmark types into one.

Additionally, we've rewritten our "Determine the historic status of a building in Chicago" Knowledge Base article to instruct members on how to use the new landmarks maps and refer readers to the relevant regulations of a landmarked building or building in a landmark district.

By request, one can now filter Property Finder to show property owned by the City of Chicago and property associated with the Cook County Land Bank Authority at the same time. Previously, Cityscape members could only show one or the other. 

Property Finder now also makes the distinction between property currently owned by the City of Chicago and property previously owned. 

The screenshot below also shows how the two filters have moved from "Special filters" to a new "Gov't owned land" group of filters.

Two quick updates: The Chicago Cityscape Scavenger Sale Portal now has 3,626 fewer properties, and properties are now sorted in the order they are auctioned. 

Reminder: There is no bidding on Monday, February 21, 2022, due to it being Presidents Day.

1. Of the 3,626 removed properties, 1,932 were already scheduled to be auctioned in the first week. That means that there are 1,694 properties that were going to be auctioned this week but will not. 

2. We're improving the Portal based on feedback and based on how people track properties during the auction. To help you make following the auction more efficient, we made several changes:

• By default, only properties to be auctioned on the day you're looking at them and in the future are shown. You can filter for a specific date, or remove all date filters by changing the "Filter by bid date" dropdown menu. 
• When you're signed in, you can view up to 5,000 properties at a time. This is enough to see an entire day's worth of scheduled properties. 
• Properties are sorted by the order in which they will be auctioned (that is, by volume and then by PIN). Look for this sequence number in the "Day #" column. If you are looking at a view that includes multiple bid dates the day # will reset to 1 in the middle of your view. 
• Exporting the data will also export the sequence number. This way you can print out a spreadsheet and keep it sorted properly and follow along with the auctioneer. 

Please keep sending us feedback to info@chicagocityscape! While it's too late to make any further improvements – because there are four bidding days left – we want to build a better Portal for the next Scavenger Sale in 2023.

Our "TDL" (transportation, distribution, and logistics) features have received two updates. 

First, there's a new statewide map – called Illinois Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics (TDL) – of intermodal yards and distribution and fulfillment centers. You can filter this map by municipality, operator (like Aeroterm and Amazon), and type. We have three types: intermodal, distribution center, and Amazon (yes, there are so many that it gets its own type). 

We are looking to expand our database of distribution centers and similar warehouses, to include ones operated by third parties like Prologis and Missner. 

Secondly, in Transportation Snapshot, we increased the loading speed to show TDL facilities within 10 miles of any address that you look up. Additionally, the data from 2018 showing the number of lifts at each intermodal yard was added. 

Just three weeks ago, the Illinois Department of Agriculture issued licenses for over 30 craft growers. We updated our cannabis maps to show 30 licensees; some of the other licensees do not have locations and are not shown. 

Here's how to access the map of craft growers:

• Illinois map of growing facilities (21 cultivation centers and 30 craft growers) - You can filter and sort the map by type, operator name, and city. A Cityscape Real Estate Pro membership or the Cannabis Compliance add-on is required to view all of the locations.
• Cannabis businesses near an address - The Cannabis Compliance section of every Address Snapshot has been updated to show the locations of craft growers. The layer for growing facilities (cultivation centers & craft growers) is not shown by default, so open the map's layer chooser and enable "Growing facilities". 

What's next: We'll be adding the newly-licensed infusers (that have business locations) next week. 

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.