Image of Lathrop Homes development on the North Branch of the Chicago River.

Friends works closely with river-edge property owners to guide innovative site planning that enhances the health of the Chicago River system and ensures public accessibility. 

Friends secured Chicago’s first river protection ordinance (1983) and was instrumental in the creation of the original City of Chicago River Corridor Development Plan (1999) which codified required setbacks and landscape treatments along the river. Today, we have even more advanced tools for implementation of river-edge improvements with the recently adopted Chicago River Design Guidelines (2019) that provide a catalogue of design standards for river-edge development.

New developments along the river in Chicago are now held to high environmental standards and river-edge sites are prized locations. 
Image of Southbank development on the South Branch of the Chicago River.

But our work is even more important today, with increasing pressure to maximize development opportunities in river-edge locations. We continue to work closely with private and public property owners to ensure that each new development maximizes the use of innovative design strategies to realize our blue-green corridor vision. 

Friends advocates for appropriate river-edge development through:

1. Individual collaboration with property owners, design teams, and developers.
2. Serving on development advisory coalitions/committees such as the City of Chicago’s River Ecology and Governance Task Force, Lincoln Yards Community Advisory Council, and The 78 Community Advisory Council.
3. Utilizing our Planning Committee of knowledgeable volunteer professionals from the fields of design, development, construction, planning, engineering, ecology, and marine recreation.

Our priorities for river-edge developments are:

• Habitat creation, protection, and enhancement.
• Stormwater capture and infiltration through nature-based solutions.
• Avoidance of potentially river harming or polluting uses.
• Welcoming public access to the river’s edge and the waterway for recreation.
• A continuously connected river edge trail system.

Resources for river edge development:

• Friends of the Chicago River’s
  • Developer  Resource Guide
• City of Chicago River Design Guidelines

Questions regarding Friends’ river edge development advocacy can be directed to our Planning Director, Adam Flickinger at aflickinger@chicagoriver.org.

River Edge Development Tracking Map

Friends’ River Edge Development Tracking Map is an informal web map used to track ongoing developments throughout the Chicago-Calumet River system. This is a key tool for advocacy that our planning team maintains regularly.

Note: The Friends of the Chicago River is committed to providing this tool to our partners, volunteers, and the public for general information purposes. However, Friends of the Chicago River cannot guarantee the quality, content, accuracy, or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links, and other items contained on its web map. All data visualizations on maps should be considered approximate. Friends of the Chicago River is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages that are referenced by this web map.