Trammell Crow, through subsidiary High Street Residential, is building 138 luxury units in Chicagos suburban North Shore, bucking the trend of downtown groundbreakings. TCC's John Carlson (left with Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler's Ned Frank and Rasmussen College's David Mazurek) tells us his firm was attracted to the burbs (downtown Glenview, to be exact) because of strong rent growth and a lack of existing Class-A product. The barrier to entry keeping competition at bay: the complicated entitlement process. Including projects finished in Q1, just 923 units were completed in the burbs over the past year (a measly 0.2% addition to rental inventory), according to recent Marcus & Millichap numbers.

The 215k SF development, called Midtown Square, will be just east of the Glenview train station. John says itll target professionals commuting downtown, single parents, families with childrenfor walk-up street level unitsand empty nesters. (Its a veritable UN of demographics.) Amenities include 9,000 SF of first floor retail, a sun deck, bike storage, and a dog wash station. Which begs the question: Why are dogs riding bikes? TC plans to deliver units in the fall of 2014. Fitzgerald Associates Architects is lead architect and McShane Construction is GC. As for Johns summer plans, hell be spending a weekend in Northern Minnesota on the lake, dont cha know.