Draw a five-mile circle around 2100 S. Canalport Ave. in Chicago’s East Pilsen neighborhood and look for an available Class-A industrial building between 10,000 and 20,000 square feet. According to Avison Young’s Q2 2026 Chicago Industrial report, there are none. Steven Kohn, SIOR, Principal at Avison Young, said that has been true for several years, long enough that the tenants who want to be there have stopped expecting to find it.
“Tenants are frustrated that space like this does not exist and they must accept older, functionally obsolete space,” Kohn said.
Kohn said the shortage stings hardest for food users, who have dominated the submarket for decades, and for industrial distributors who want the highway access and the customer base but cannot understand why nothing gets built.
“With so many of their competitors nearby this area is like a Merchandise Mart for industrial distributors,” Kohn said.
That is the gap Podmajersky, Inc. intends to fill with a speculative 12,000-square-foot facility scheduled for delivery in 2027 in the East Pilsen market. The ground-up project comes from a developer better known for creative reuse and the East Pilsen arts district and it arrives with the specifications the neighborhood’s older stock cannot offer: 24-foot clear heights, dock and drive-in loading, flexible power capacity and Enterprise Zone incentives. The site sits roughly 600 feet from the I-90/I-55 interchange and about 2.5 miles from downtown. Avison Young is marketing the building.
John Podmajersky III, President of Podmajersky, Inc., has owned the Canalport parcel for years and said his vision for it shifted as industrial users were pushed out of Fulton Market. He came to see it as a natural home for service companies that need to reach the Loop quickly with I-94, I-55 and DuSable Lake Shore Drive all within a few hundred feet.
“These interchanges take you right into the service areas of Loop buildings via Lower Wacker Dr.,” Podmajersky said. “It’s really just a matter of minutes to service a building or deliver a product to the Loop from this location.”
That proximity is the whole argument against heading out to the I-55 corridor where a tenant can find plenty of modern space at the cost of distance. Kohn draws a sharp line between the two.
“Every mile their customer has to drive to get what they need to complete their job sucks up time and destroys profitability,” Kohn said. “I-55 is a regional distribution center. This location is for those servicing the central business district.”
The Canalport project grew out of what Podmajersky has already seen work directly across the street. The company’s building at 900 W. Cermak Road, a Chicago industrial loft with common brick, transom skylights and multiple loading options, houses Gustave Larson and Bento Inc., the sushi provider that took over the former Foxtrot commissary in a lease negotiated by Avison Young. Podmajersky said both companies chose the location for the transportation access and the labor pool nearby, and both prioritized quality space.
“So, yes, I guess you could say that I enjoyed those projects and companies so much that it got me thinking about who might be next,” Podmajersky said.
The new building borrows its look from that older neighbor. Podmajersky said the area around Canalport brings together several building types and uses, so the design gives a new industrial box the appearance of a Chicago loft building with local Chicago common brick and a scale that fits the historic commercial structures around it. With 900 W. Cermak facing the site, he said, delivering something that fits its surroundings was a priority.
The Podmajersky family has been investing in East Pilsen since 1913. The company itself was founded in 1987 and has renovated, managed and leased more than 300,000 square feet in the neighborhood, a portfolio that spans creative industrial, loft office, retail, art and residential space.
Podmajersky expects the east end of the neighborhood to keep attracting last-mile, service, distribution and business-to-business showroom users along the lines of the tenants already at 900 W. Cermak. He said the company still has space available there and a second phase is in early planning nearby.
Kohn sees Canalport as part of a wider turn toward small-bay infill development with similar projects appearing in Fulton Market and on the North Side. He expects many more in the coming years and describes Pilsen as hot across every property type with office, retail, industrial and residential all picking up. He calls it the Brooklyn of Chicago, a comparison a recent travel guide also made.
“Nobody has done more for commercial property in Pilsen than the Podmajerskys so ground up is another feather in their cap,” Kohn said.
For Podmajersky, the project is one more step in a family commitment that predates the company by decades.
“This project is the next step in our long-term commitment to bringing economic development to Pilsen by providing attractive and affordable space,” Podmajersky said. “It’s a fantastic location for business and it won’t be overlooked anymore.”
