The city's Department of Planning and Development will issue a request for proposals for developers, who would be required to have an environmentally friendly "green roof" over 50% of their buildings. Transit-oriented developments that would include a grocery store and affordable housing are among the uses that will be encouraged in a request for proposals. Current C2-2 zoning would allow for a 200,000-sf mixed-use development, but project manager Michael Weber says the Department of Planning and Development will support a change to a planned development.

Although no price is set, developers are being told to acquire the 18 parcels on their own or be prepared to pay the city's cost of acquiring the property, which has 900 feet of frontage on Milwaukee Avenue and is near a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line station, Weber says. The city ordered an appraisal last month, but has yet to receive it. Property records indicate the 66,000-sf Megamall changed hands in 1996 for $1.9 million.

The Megamall has been closed since June following a court order and 112 code violations, Weber says. "This site has been a source of issues for a number of years," says 35th Ward Alderman Rey Colon. "There hasn't been adequate care of the facility."