On October 21, an excavator went to work on the land where A. Finkl & Sons made steel for more than a century. Block Club Chicago reported that Foundry Park had broken ground after years of uncertainty at the former Lincoln Yards site. The Mayor's office announced it the same day. All that digging is east of the Chicago River, in a triangle on the Lincoln Park side.
The Bucktown side of Foundry Park sits across the water, between Cortland Street and Elston Avenue. No start date has been announced for it. The pieces Bucktown buyers picture when they hear "Foundry Park" are a trail over the river, a fixed Ashland-Armitage-Elston intersection, and a riverfront park on their side. Those are the least scheduled parts of the whole project. The pieces that do have dates arrive years apart, and the first one Bucktown residents could walk on is a CDOT trail segment whose construction window opens in late 2027.
The groundbreaking was for the Lincoln Park triangle
The first phase is Subarea D. It's a triangular parcel bounded by Southport Avenue on the west, Cortland Street on the south and Kingsbury Street on the northeast. Urbanize Chicago's groundbreaking coverage describes four buildings over shared underground parking: an 11-story hotel, a 13-story residential building, an 8-story residential building and a 38-story mixed-use tower with a grocer on the ground floor. Urbanize puts phase one at $800 million. It also says no completion timeline for phase one or later phases has been announced.
Other outlets give dates of their own. The Real Deal reported that phase one's homes and hotel were expected by early 2029. It also reported that JDL CEO Jim Letchinger said the team was still finalizing partners for a construction loan of nearly $500 million, which he called imminent. Until then, the developers are starting with their own capital. Block Club cites a full-buildout estimate of 2034.
Even the dated part of the project, the part with equipment on site, has one outlet giving a 2029 target and another reporting no announced timeline. Everything else in this post is less certain than that.
Bucktown's share is one parcel, still undated
Subarea F is the only Foundry Park land west of the river. Urbanize reports the plan as a 35-story, 500-unit residential tower with a large fitness center, plus a 12-story office building, under a 450-foot height cap. The site plan puts green space along the riverfront between the two buildings and keeps room for a future 606 connection through the site and over the water.
That parcel is part of a much bigger program. The approved plan allows up to 3,737 homes. The detailed scheme is 3,690 apartments and condos, 19 single-family homes, 28 townhomes, 180 to 200 hotel rooms, about 420,000 square feet of retail and 350,000 square feet of office. Ald. Brian Hopkins of the 2nd Ward told Block Club how long he expects all of it to take:
"This is a minimum 10-year project. Realistically, it's probably more like 15."
On a project of that length, where Bucktown's single parcel falls in the order is what matters. No published source puts Subarea F in phase one or gives it any date.
Five pieces, five levels of certainty
Here's each Bucktown-relevant piece of Foundry Park, with its status as of early November 2026:
| Piece | Where it lands | Status | Earliest date on the public record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase one, Subarea D | Lincoln Park side, Southport, Kingsbury and Cortland | Groundbreaking Oct. 21; construction loan reported as not yet closed | Early 2029 per The Real Deal; Urbanize says not announced |
| 606 extension to Elston | Walsh Park east over Ashland, under the Kennedy, to Elston | CDOT detailed engineering, Q1 2026 to Q2 2027 | Construction Q4 2027 to Q4 2028 |
| 606 crossing over the river | Through Subarea F into the main site | Funded as a TIF line item; Block Club calls it a "potential" extension | None published |
| Subarea F tower and office building | Bucktown side, Cortland to Elston | Part of the approved plan | None published |
| Ashland, Armitage and Elston intersection | Bucktown's eastern edge | Left out of the TIF deal; on a promised study list | None published |
The money is real. City Council approved $201.6 million in tax increment financing on September 23, and JDL Development and Kayne Anderson Real Estate are adding about $33 million, which brings infrastructure to roughly $235 million. The city's staff report budgets $70.9 million for roadways and $21.48 million for a 606 extension. It also lists Triangle Park, Crescent Park, Fitness Park and east and west Foundry Point parks. Ald. Scott Waguespack of the 32nd Ward, whose ward includes the site, told Block Club the public money goes to "the roadway, sewers, the new park spaces, the riverfront, the bridges and infrastructure for the extension of the 606." A budget line pays for a crossing. It doesn't schedule one.
The trail segment with a date has already slipped once
The 606 currently ends in Walsh Park at Marshfield Avenue. CDOT's Bloomingdale Trail Extension page describes the next segment as a crossing over Ashland Avenue and under the expressway and railroad tracks to Elston. It involves land controlled by CDOT, the Chicago Park District, Cook County and Union Pacific Railroad. Block Club's 2023 coverage described the final stretch crossing Elston on an abandoned rail bridge.
That segment is the one most likely to change the east Bucktown blocks around Ashland first, and its forecast has moved before. In January 2025, Block Club reported completion expected by late 2027. CDOT's current schedule has detailed engineering running through Q2 2027 and construction from Q4 2027 to Q4 2028. The same page still has an older line saying construction would begin in 2025.
The river crossing continues from where the CDOT segment ends east of Elston. A trail into Foundry Park needs the Elston segment finished before it connects to anything. So the most-marketed Bucktown benefit sits at the end of a chain, and the first link in that chain has already moved out by about a year.
The intersection is on a study list
Anyone driving out of east Bucktown deals with the Ashland, Armitage and Elston intersection. The September deal doesn't fix it. Block Club reported that the infrastructure agreement left out the intersection overhaul and several Chicago River bridges that were part of the larger Lincoln Yards pitch.
In his October 5 ward newsletter, Hopkins wrote that CDOT and the Department of Planning and Development had given him formal written assurances. They promised to study vehicle bridges, the Elston-Armitage-Ashland intersection, Clybourn Metra station improvements and a Kingsbury Street extension as part of redeveloping the former Lincoln Yards South property. That ties the intersection to a second site. Novak Construction bought the southern section, and Block Club reported that plans for it have yet to be made public. So the traffic fix depends on a study, and the study is tied to a project with no published plan.
What this changes when you compare east Bucktown listings
The broader market makes forward-looking pitches easier to make. In September 2026, citywide Chicago closed sales fell 7.2% year over year to 1,681. The median sale price rose 8.3% to $389,900, homes sold in a median 27 days, and for-sale inventory dropped 20.9% to 3,788 homes, according to Illinois REALTORS. Those are citywide numbers, not Bucktown's. With roughly a fifth less inventory than a year earlier, a listing line like "steps from the future 606 extension" faces less competition from other listings.
Read against the table above, that line could mean three different things. It could mean the CDOT segment to Elston, with construction scheduled for Q4 2027 through Q4 2028. It could mean the river crossing, which is funded but has no schedule. Or it could mean the general idea of Foundry Park, which a sitting alderman expects to take 10 to 15 years. These questions sort out which one a listing means:
- Which segment is the listing talking about, and does it have a CDOT construction window?
- Is the selling point the Lincoln Park side, where phase one is underway, or Subarea F, which has no date?
- Does the property's appeal depend on the Ashland-Armitage-Elston intersection improving, which currently rests on a promised study?
- For a rental property, when would the 500-unit Subarea F tower come online? The public record doesn't say yet.
Investors should also know about the affordability terms. The city says 20% of all Foundry Park homes will be affordable, or more than 700 in total. Phase one's 709 mixed-income homes include 95 affordable units on-site and five off-site, plus a payment of more than $7 million in place of another 42 units, as Block Club reported in January. All of those phase one homes are on the Lincoln Park side, and the earliest reported delivery target is early 2029.
For underwriting a two-flat near Ashland, the dated milestones are the CDOT trail segment ending in Q4 2028 and phase one targeted for early 2029. Anything beyond those, including the Bucktown tower, the river crossing and the intersection, has no date in any public source as of this week.
If you're weighing a property near the east end of The 606 and want to separate the pieces with dates from the ones still in renderings, Joe Kotoch Group can go through the timeline block by block and build the deal math on what's actually scheduled. Start a Strategic Conversation.
