Get a heads up on new developments with Pending Permits

Steven Vance
Chicago Cityscape’s Blog
2 min readMar 11, 2024

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Building permits tell you about projects that have been permitted by the city and can begin construction. Chicago Cityscape’s new Pending Permits map can show you projects that are still in the permit application process and are days or months away from being permitted.

Pending Permits is how we know that Lendlease is preparing its third high-rise residential building in the Southbank development.

If you’re a Chicago Cityscape member, give Pending Permits a try — it’s available to all membership tiers.

Left to right: The permit application description indicates a forthcoming 21-story building; the development site in March 2024; workers are boring for soil tests in January 2024.

Features available

Pending Permits is not as detailed as our other lead generation features (like Building Permits Browser and Proposed Projects). The City of Chicago publishes the work description but does not show the permit applicant’s name. To help our members figure out who’s developing a project we show the current property tax payer’s name — this is the owner, more often than not (see screenshot below).

Pending permits can be filtered by whether it’s new construction, renovation, or demolition, and what review process it’s in. Select “Direct Developer Services” to find the biggest upcoming projects.

Applicant information is not available so Chicago Cityscape shows the current property tax payer’s name, which is usually the same as the owner.

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Map maker, into transportation, land use, and housing. Tweets: @stevevance, @chibuildings, part of @streetsblogCHI