At the time, it was unclear what would be built on the 5,200 square foot site, which includes the footprint of the walk-in building before the fire and its side yard. But on December 10, the city issued a building permit, seen on the Chicago Cityscape permit tracker.

According to the permit, a five-story building containing seven residential units and a seven-car garage and roof terrace will rise on the site. Built in masonry, the project will cost nearly $ 2.4 million to build, the owners estimated.

The estimated cost shown on a permit is for major construction and utilities and does not include finishes.

Crain’s was unable to determine whether the residential units will be apartments for rent or condominiums for sale. Sabina Szura and Derek Kupczk, directors of PLD Construction & Development, did not respond to Crain’s multiple requests for comment.

It is also not known: what the building will look like.

A legal entity associated with PLD paid $ 2.05 million for the property on November 17, buying it from a woman who had owned the building since 1987.

PLD initially applied for a demolition permit in November 2020, when the previous owner, Beverly Paulsey, still owned it. But because the building is listed as orange in the city’s historic buildings survey, it was subject to an automatic 90-day delay. This deadline expired in February. In mid-November, the PLD entity purchased the property, and on December 2, the city’s building department issued a demolition permit.

Built in the early 1860s, the building stood a few blocks west of the Burnt Out Quarter, the area that was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Even so, Ward Miller, the chief of Preservation Chicago , told Crain last week that the Willard Court building was one of some 200 ‘premium buildings’, still recognizable in their primitive form, years just before and after the fire.

Aside from a modern, square commercial space added to the front of the building, it appears to have changed little since it was constructed in red brick, with tall hooded windows and a pyramid roof.

News of the demolition of the Willard Court building prompted prominent Chicago architect and curator John Vinci to write in Crain’s that “Chicago is in desperate need of an architectural museum,” something with a more cataloged approach to the collection. as the Chicago Architecture Center and its well-known city tours and downtown mockup.