Lincoln Yards Buyer Scoops Up More Land From Sterling Bay

A construction company has acquired two additional land parcels near the former Lincoln Yards site, months after buying the southern portion of the stalled megadevelopment.

Vacant lot between two old factory buildings in Chicago.
An empty lot at 1500 W. Cortland St. in Chicago

An affiliate of Novak Construction paid $2.6M to Sterling Bay, the developer behind Lincoln Yards, for land at 1500 W. Cortland St. and 1901 Elston Ave., CoStar News reported. The move comes after Novak paid $34M for the roughly 18-acre southern parcel of the megadevelopment early this year.

Novak added only about 30K SF in the latest deal. The land is along the western edge of the old Lincoln Yards site. Novak has owned the nearby land at 1548-1558 N. Elston Ave. since 2020.

Novak's plans for the new property and the previously acquired larger parcel are unknown. CBRE brokers Larry Goldwasser and Tom Svoboda represented the seller in the Cortland and Elston deal.

Sterling Bay continues to unwind its presence in and around the Lincoln Yards site.

In March, lender Bank OZK took over Sterling Bay's only completed office building in the development. The 284K SF life sciences, office and research building was vacant and was taken in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure transaction.

Sterling Bay placed the property on the market in August, a month after JDL Development and Kayne Anderson Real Estate agreed to buy the northern section of Lincoln Yards for $84M. Bank OZK had seized that section of the property in March 2025.

JDL has reimagined the site as the $3B Foundry Park, a mixed-use development with thousands of residential units and commercial, office and hotel space. The first phase of the project will be 1.6M SF.

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