This is adapted from a piece I originally wrote for the MAP Strategies blog in January 2019, when I was consulting for them. The original is gone from their site but lives on in the Wayback Machine. I’m republishing it here because the inventory is a useful snapshot of where Chicago’s co-living market stood at the start of 2019 — a moment when it looked like co-living might become a real fixture of the city’s housing landscape. How that played out is a story for another post.
The co-living trend seems to be picking up in Chicago. Co-living is a housing arrangement where people who don’t necessarily know each other live in the same apartment and share a kitchen, but each tenant is only responsible for a lease on their own bedroom. It saves tenants money through shared facilities — typically including in-unit laundry — and many of the new co-living developments offer the same amenity package as Chicago’s market-rate apartment buildings: rooftop decks, coworking space, gyms.
Co-living isn’t new. Unrelated adults have been sharing apartments for centuries. What’s new is the on-site amenity layer, on par with the newest apartment buildings in the city. As a renter myself, there’s a real attraction to it: you save a little money by having roommates, you don’t have to find them yourself, and you aren’t responsible for their share of the rent. Many operators bundle weekly professional cleaning into the rent, which handles the chore-wheel question. Some apartments come fully furnished.
Related: Chicago’s zoning code regulates the number of unrelated adults that a household can be designed to accommodate – laws that undo this are sometimes called “The Golden Girls Bill”. Read more.
The regulatory picture
In Chicago, co-living buildings adhere to the same zoning code standards and largely the same building code standards as a multi-family development. They are also subject to the same Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO) standards as a multi-unit building. Even though the standards are the same, navigating the Department of Buildings and Department of Planning & Development processes isn’t always straightforward for new co-living developers.
Ten buildings, six operators
By my count there were ten co-living buildings operating or under construction in Chicago at the start of 2019, run by a mix of local, national, and international companies. Most allowed whole-apartment leases in addition to room-by-room leases.
Common is a New York–based operator that has built a platform local developers can plug into for new construction or conversions. Three Chicago buildings:
- 455 W Briar Pl. in Lakeview — a converted two-flat with 14 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, permitted as an SRO. (“SRO” is a zoning code term; the building code calls the same thing congregate living.) This was the only conversion in Common’s Chicago portfolio at the time; everything else was new construction.
- 2048 W Chicago Ave. in Ukrainian Village — new construction.
- 1407 W 15th St., between the Illinois Medical District and Pilsen — under construction at the time. It later opened as Common Addams.
PMG (Property Markets Group) is a local developer that operates two co-living buildings:
- The L in Logan Square, at 2211 N Milwaukee Ave.
- X Chicago in University Village, at 710 W 14th St.
1237 West at 1237 W. Fullerton Ave. — A privately owned DePaul University dormitory that recently began accepting non-students. Owned and operated by The Scion Group.
Quarters at 171 N Aberdeen St. in the West Loop — The first Chicago location of Berlin-based Medici Living Group’s international Quarters brand. The building was developed by MCZ Development.
30 East Apartments in the South Loop — Opened in 2017. It’s surrounded by several colleges and universities, so the marketing leans toward students, but you don’t have to be one to live there. Developed by Gilbane and managed by Asset Campus Housing.
Bungalow is a startup that master-leases existing houses and apartments. At the time: a 5-bedroom house in Bucktown and a unit in Wicker Park.
If I missed a Chicago co-living building from that 2019 moment, let me know.