CHICAGO—In the last few years, Tucker Development has concentrated on developing a set of high-profile mixed-use properties in New Jersey. But Richard Tucker, the chief executive officer, tells GlobeSt.com that with projects like Hudson Lights in suburban Fort Lee well underway, the Highland Park, IL-based company is ready to refocus on Chicagoland.
And although the company is best known here for retail projects like South Loop Marketplace and Marketplace at Six Corners in Chicago, and Country Club Plaza, a 450,000-square-foot center in suburban Country Club Hills, Tucker says he hopes to soon launch mixed-use projects with both retail and luxury rental, similar to their recent New Jersey efforts.
Adding luxury rental to these projects makes a great deal of sense, he says, since the modest and belated increase in rents for retail properties remains below the hike in construction costs. “It's really something we believe in; the retail and luxury rental components, which people are finding have pretty strong occupancy rates, can feed off of one another.”
For example, Phase I of Tucker's Hudson Lights, a one-million-square-foot development located at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge, will feature about 143,000-square-feet of retail space and 276 luxury apartments.
It made sense for Tucker to develop such projects in a coastal market like New Jersey, with its tremendous density and access to capital, as the economic recovery began. But now that the recovery has arrived in the Midwest, he feels Chicago and many of its suburbs present remarkable opportunities.
“We have about five different deals in progress,” he says, but is not ready to provide many details. “These projects could take six to eighteen months to finalize, but we're setting our sights on getting two in the ground during 2015.” And the projects won't be small. Tucker expects each will cost at least $50 million, and “unfortunately, given what construction costs are today, they could be closer to $100 million.”
And, as the company did in New Jersey, he adds, it will focus on dense, affluent areas that are underserved by luxury rental units and retail. “Fort Lee is dramatically underserved; there hadn't been a new project there in many years.” He points to Chicago developer Dan McCaffrey's Roosevelt Collection in the South Loop as a good example of what the company wants to do. “That's a market that is now highly dense and affluent that can handle a project with residences and retail.”
“It's not as if we are leaving New Jersey,” he says. The company still has to finish up the giant Hudson Lights and other ventures, and has even started hunting around for additional opportunities on the New York side of the river. “But my hope is that in about six months we will be able to talk about a timeline for our Chicago projects.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
